Queen Elizabeth I
The watch was an article of utility that became an article of fashion, hence was woven into a jewel. Queen Elizabeth I of England owned more than two dozen watches, some dangling from her girdle, one at her wrist. Four of them were gifts from one courtier, the Earl of Leicester. All were elaborately designed in various shapes, with cameos or many jewels. They were changed according to the costume. The Queen had a special page whose duty it was to wind them.
Princess Sophia
Even more watches were in the possession of Sophia Dorothea of Brunswig-Lüneberg, though she came to have little need of them. The wife of the Crown Prince of Hanover, she became involved in intrigue and was accused of a liaison with a Swedish nobleman; she saw her marriage annulled, then spent thirty-two years in prison. Her released husband became George I of England; her son, George II; her grandson (through a second Sophia Dorothea), Frederick the Great of Prussia. In the heyday of her beauty and gaiety at the Hanoverian court, Princess Sophia possessed over fifty watches, many of their cases made of a single large stone, such as a lapis lazuli or an onyx.
Early Forms
Because the early watches were in the main large and ugly, handsome cases were designed for them. As each watch was made individually, a painstaking jeweler could create a smaller instrument, such as the bracelet watch. Mme. de Pompadour wore a watch in a gold finger ring, set round with diamonds.
Watches were also made with extra devices. Some, at a time set in advance, would ring an alarm. Some would when pressed chime to reveal the present hour. In all these early watches, accuracy was not the goal. In fact, it was not until about 1680 that most watches were equipped with a minute hand; before that, one pointer marked the passage of the hours.
These watches were worn, by gallant gentlemen, less for checking their business, of which they had little, than for adding to their finery, of which they had much. The time they could spare from the adornment of their persons they devoted to the neglect of their duties. Often indeed there was a watch at each end of the chain, and both might be taken out at the same time, with ostentatious comparing of their accuracy. William Cowper in eighteenth-century England neatly pinned such gallants:
And the Earl of Chesterfield, prince of etiquette in his day, admonished his son: “Wear your learning, like your watch, in a private pocket; and do not pull it out and strike it, merely to show that you have one.” Gradually, as businessmen saw the usefulness of the watch in marking time for engagements, the accuracy of the instrument increased, and with that the frequency of its use.
Where to Wear the Watch
For practical purposes today, the wrist watch is almost universal. The watch on the wrist of Queen Elizabeth I of England dangled from a bracelet; the watch in the bracelet is a distinctive development of our own time. Railroad men and some others still prefer the larger pocket watch, but the accuracy of the good wrist watch suffices for all save the finest scientific measurements of time. That the timepiece, nevertheless, remains partly a fad and a fashion is made clear by the many less practical ways in which it is mounted. Watches have been designed in rings, on cuff links, buttons, heads of canes; on knives, notebooks, lipsticks—Time for a fresh application!—on cigarette cases and lighters, wallets, ladies’ garters—Time!
Sometimes, especially for more formal wear, the pocket watch is still worn, not with a chain but with a fob. In the vest, or in the right front “of the waistband of the breeches,” is a special pocket for the watch. To the watch is attached a black ribbon that hangs out and forms the background for a medal, a seal, or other jewel.
Oliver Cromwell wore a watch fob. This method of wearing a watch was especially fashionable—in spite of the notice the fob gives to a pickpocket—from about 1875 until 1914, when the World War popularized the wrist watch. Fifty years ago, every college Senior wore a fob with his school’s coat-of-arms and his class. The fob is still affected by certain clubmen, bearing the jeweled insignia of the club.
A recent chronometrical development for the fairer sex is the watchclip. This jewel possesses all the versatility of the clip itself, with the added usefulness of the timepiece. The watch face can of course be cunningly hidden, in the heart of a flower, or as an element of an abstract design. It may be worn on a low neckline, at a lapel, at the cuff, or even on a bracelet.
For a woman during business hours, or at golf, there is good reason for wearing a watch. The wrist watch is the best. For sports, a plain leather band should hold a simple watch. At business, a simple band or gold chain is appropriate; the watch itself may be encased with small diamonds. It should be attractive, but not call attention to itself.
For general day wear a gold bracelet made of flexible links is attractive, worn with the face of the watch open or—for more formal occasions—concealed. This may be made softer by the addition of gems or other stones, but bright-colored stones should be used only if the dial is hidden.
The functional appearance of the watch is further softened in an attractive new style, which combines the watch with a gold fringe bracelet. The fringe draws the eye artfully away from the timepiece.
Jewelled Hours
During social hours, however, one should be more regardless of time. It seems almost an affront, by wearing a clearly functional wrist watch, to let your hostess know you are measuring the time you grant her. At theatre, at evening parties, a woman should at least seem not to care how the time flits by. Indeed, there is on such occasions no need for her to wear a watch at all.
Should she, for reasons of fashion or custom, or for other personal reasons, desire to wear a watch, its functional aspects should be minimized by adornment, if not wholly concealed in a jewel. For this purpose, effective eye-catching bracelets can be devised of diamonds or diamonds and pearls. To the beauty of the modern watches, the Swiss firm of Gubelin Frères has contributed a great deal. This firm, probably more than any other famous Swiss craftsmen, has succeeded in making the watch a masterpiece of design and beauty. Gubelin added to the improvement of the mechanical performance of the modern watch high artistic value.
There are beautiful flower brooches in the heart of which hides a watch. There are pendants, for a loose necklace or a brooch, the bottom of which is the watch face. In greater variety, the wrist watch can be fashioned into a gem-studded beauty, as in the $20,000 diamond bracelet watch sent by jewelers of Geneva to Elizabeth II of England on her wedding day.
Three parts of the wrist watch may be distinguished for purposes of adornment. First the bracelet as a whole may be an attractive jewel. It may be of plain or of twisted gold; or it may be a circle of small diamonds or other stones. In still other ways, the entire band may be ornamented, with the watch drawn into the unity of the jewel design. Secondly, the main circle of the band may be of plain gold, with the ornamentation beginning where the bracelet meets the watch. For an inch or so on either side of the watch, the band may widen in a swirl of domed gold wire, or some other modern patterns; or the band may there be set with diamonds, baguette or marquise. Finally, there is the watch itself, which may be circled or otherwise encased in diamonds. The design of the bracelet, however, may almost wholly conceal the watch. Some settings have been made in which a large stone covers the watch face, and must be lifted to reveal the time.
The wrist watch, for practical reasons, should not be worn on the handbag arm; the winding crown may be jarred or broken. For both practical and aesthetic reasons, it should not be worn with other bracelets. The glass may be jarred off. And while the watch bracelet may look attractive alone, the presence of other jewels makes its utilitarian function over-prominent. The wrist watch should be serviceable, but beautiful.
In any case, a watch is at best an interloper, if not a downright intruder, in moments of feminine finery. Permitting a woman to espy the hour when she should not be so concerned, the watch—like all spies—should be as much as possible unnoticed and unknown. If it be worn, it should not be as a watch but as an integral part of a jewel.
In Front of Your Mirror
A wise woman knows the importance of her jewels and does not squander them in overlavish display. The “principle of parsimony” applies here as elsewhere: unless there be an overriding reason for elaboration, the simplest means are the best. Jewels may, as we have seen, be beautiful on many parts of the body—but not on all of them at once. Each occasion, each costume, calls for separate consideration and individual selection of jewels.
It is not vanity, but common sense, for a woman to spend time before a mirror, making her own acquaintance, becoming familiar with her qualities and with the values brought out by various arrangements of her jewels. Only by such a process, renewed frequently through the years (as jewels and features alter), can a woman command the full power of her treasure chest as a true ally to her own beauty.
Daniel Webster, looking at the great stone face of the “Old Man of the Mountain,” observed: “Men hang out their signs indicative of their respective trades: shoemakers hang out a gigantic shoe; jewelers, a monster watch ... but up in the mountains of New Hampshire, God Almighty has hung out a sign to show that here He makes men.” And let them not mar themselves, Shakespeare reminds us, including the fair sex of the human kind. And a woman, whose sign is beauty, keeps a “monster watch” over her harmony in her jewels. Decorum and decoration, hand in hand, lead her to the fullest capture of the values with which nature has endowed her and which she has helped to foster, feed and bring to flower.