Opinion – Fat Stacks For Everyone

Don’t be afraid. It’s all just jewelry in the end, and jewelry can’t hurt you.

Wander around Reddit watch subs long enough and you are going to run into the following sentiment: If you are a man, and mostly also if you are a woman, you SHOULD NOT WEAR BRACELETS WITH YOUR WATCH. Its forbidden. Its taboo. It breaks all societal contracts that we have established in our collecting community. Terrible things are going to happen to you if you do this. Just take a peek for yourself, for every sane individual there are two more with hot takes like these…

[Unpopular Opinion] Wearing a Bracelet Next to Your Watch Looks Bad

– It messes up the balance. A well-designed watch is already a perfect mix of materials, colors, and proportions. Adding a random leather strap, metal chain or (God forbid) some beads just turns your wrist into a chaotic mess. Instead of looking stylish, it looks like you couldn’t decide between a watch and accessories, so you just wore everything at once.

– …If you wanna wear a bracelet wear it on your other wrist at least it’s more balanced and symmetrical.

– This is definitely not an unpopular opinion. It’s common sense.

– …wearing a bracelet next to the watch is the most cringe worthy thing ever.

– …looks like you’re trying too hard. Even worse, you can end up looking effeminate.

– It’s a dumb younger-guy hipster thing that hopefully is on it’s way out.

– …If you need a bracelet on the same wrist as the watch, the watch isn’t good enough or you’re just being tacky.

But I am here to tell you that everything is going to be alright.

Firstly, a handy definition: Stacking is the act of taking multiple bracelets and wearing them atop of each other up and down the arm, thus the bracelets are stacked on the arm. For the purposes of this post, I am going to put the equation as such: (1 Bracelet + 1 Watch) x 1 Wrist {or} Arm = “A Stack”. The stack can grow taller, but that is the minimum needed to qualify.

Now, let me list you out the 3 most egregious things that people will tell you will happen if you pair a bracelet on the same wrist as your watch:

1. Its going to scratch the finish on that $12,000 watch you just bought!
2. It looks totally unprofessional, its cringey and try-hard.
3. It’s too busy, how can you appreciate the watch with so much going on?

Let me counter those concerns with 3 of my own…

Its Okay to Scratch Your Watch

The moment you put a watch on your wrist it has the potential to get damaged. Put that watch on your wrist enough times and it will for sure get damaged. Now, damage is not necessarily catastrophic failure. Damage can be scuffs, bruises, scratches, chips and what not. Chicks dig scars; I like a well worn watch. If your goal is to take a very precious, and very rare, timepiece and wear it around, well then you are taking your chances with that thing. And if its that precious, then just don’t fucking wear it.

But, I’ll let you in on a secret: Its just a thing… you can’t take it with you when you die and your kids don’t want your old shit. I hope that puts into perspective how much the preservation of your things really matters. The watch doesn’t stop working because it’s scraped up. You might argue: Why invite this damage with a bunch of metal bracelets? And I’d say back: The damage is inevitable, why fight it, who cares. If your things all need to be perfect, then I have news for you buddy: Life is chaos, learn to embrace it.

Additionally, ask yourself this: Are you afraid of damaging your watch? If so, why? I will guarantee that any modern watch is 10x tougher than you are. Consider this, let’s say that your watch is 40mm wide, and you drop it from a height of 4 feet onto a hardwood floor. It still works. That would be the equivalent of you falling 12-18 stories, you are aren’t running after your fall, but your watch is. So if a little metal bracelet isn’t going to hurt how the watch works, then the real complaint is the aesthetic one.

There is but one scenario in which I will accept the aesthetic complaint, and that’s if the watch you are wearing is very old, very rare, or of very special provenance. Is this a one of a kind 1950 AP triple calendar in gold that your grandfather gave you on his death bed? And you want to wear that… ok, I’ll accept that no metal bracelets on the same hand makes sense. But you’re never going to convince me that you can’t wear rubber or cloth or leather bracelets with that watch.

Lastly, if you are worried that a metal bracelet is going to scratch your Rolex Daytona and thus lessen its resale value, then I have no words for you. Well, I do actually: Jog On. I don’t want to be in the same room as you if that is your attitude towards watches. Maybe you say that you saved up 10 years for that Daytona and you want it to remain perfect. I get that sentiment in theory, but in reality if you can’t afford to scratch that watch up then you can’t afford that watch. You’ve over-leveraged yourself into a watch, and that’s a dumb thing to do.

Its OK To Have a Personal Style

How you choose to dress yourself is your business. If you want to model your appearance after a 1950’s ad man, that’s on you. But let me throw this out there: You might be clinging to outdated modalities. You don’t have to dress like that. Maybe you want to, and that’s fine. But you don’t have to. And you certainly don’t have to package your man (or woman) hood in that fashion.

You are no less a good man, husband or father if you choose to wear some charm bracelets. Hell, half my stack is usually shit my daughter made or bought for me. I’m not embarrassed about that at all. I consider that a part of our bond. The more colorful the better, I say.

Right now I have a bracelet with my daughter and wife’s initials, a rubber heart from my daughter, a rubber-band I picked up off the kitchen floor, a sloth charm from our trip to Costa Rica last year, another bracelet from the same trip, a leather Abercrombie deal that I just simply like the look of, and Dale (from Chip & Dale) bracelet from Disneyland (my daughter wears the Chip side, we clink them together for fun, like a knuckle bump). I have no intention of removing any of these, and I have no intention of forgoing wearing a watch, so I guess they are all just going to have learn to get along on my wrist.

To the idea that its somehow unprofessional to wear charm bracelets as a grown man: I have worked in a corporate setting for the better part of 3 decades now and not once have I ever even considered that my bracelets were a detriment to my work. Now, granted, I am not a lawyer or politician where my ability to perform my job is largely based on public opinion of my outward appearance (and I do accept that there are some jobs like that), but my guess is that the vast majority of you aren’t either of those things either. With the proliferation of Juicy sweatpants as appropriate airport attire, tank tops pretty much anywhere during the summer, and visible neck tattoos adorning white collar workers, I’d say that a stack of charm bracelets is one of the least impactful shifts our society has undertaken.

Lastly, regarding the idea that age dictates fashion, I don’t buy it. Is stacking a heap of bracelets a young hipster poser thing to do or is it a throwback 70’s era thing that only old people do? There seems to be no consensus on that in the forums. So I posit this instead: If you are ascribing something you personally don’t like to be the choice of one generation or another, then you already had problems with that generation to begin with, and the stacks of charm bracelets they’re wearing has nothing to do with your hate. You just don’t like certain kinds of people, bracelets or not. And guess what, that’s totally cool, I hate all sorts of people too. But I never base it on the way they dress, its always based on their shitty politics, or outdated belief structure, or just generally the way they live their life and talk about it. But I don’t give a fuck if they choose to wear a bowler hat, suspenders and pantaloons, I’ll hate them for who they are on the inside, not the outside.

You Are Not Your Watch

Fight Club said it first, but it holds up here just as well: You are not your watch. If you are defining yourself by the hunk of metal on your wrist then no amount of my ranting is going to help you, you need real help from a licensed professional. If you are secure in yourself then it shouldn’t matter if you wear a platinum AP or a plastic G-Shock or anything in between or nothing at all. A watch has 3 good reasons to be on your wrist:

1. You personally like it.
2. It means something to you personally.
3. Its personally useful to you.

Note that all of these have the word “personal” in them. Its about you, and only you. Its not a way to gain favor at work, its not a way to showcase wealth, and its certainly not a way to project to others who you are as a person. Shame on anybody that reads into any of that from a watch.

It can’t be said enough: Nobody (with maybe the exception of other watch nerds) gives two half shits what you have on your wrist, be it charm bracelets or a Vacheron Overseas. Never in my life or travels have I ever had the watch or bracelets I was wearing held against me, or even discussed for that matter. It just doesn’t happen in the real world. These sorts of paranoid sentiments are the dreck of the chronically online who spend way too much time on message boards. Go outside. You’ll see. Nobody fucking cares.

“But Mr. Beater Time…” you say, “I don’t like to wear bracelets; they’re uncomfortable and a safety hazard for my job and I simply don’t like the look.” Well that’s OK! Those are fantastic reasons to not stack up a bunch of rubber and metal trinkets on your wrist! I have no problem with you, you are not the droids I am looking for. No, the droids I am looking for are those self-aggrandizing asses that simply proclaim that the watch is far to precious to be worn with any adornments whatsoever for fear that it might damage or otherwise impede the appreciation of the watch, the person, or their goals in life. Fact is, life is not what people make of it online. Life is outside, and it’s your life.

So stack it up if you want, and I’ll do the same. And if we see each other with fat stacks in the same place, maybe I’ll say “nice stack”, but probably not. I’ll be too busy with my own life to care.