For Those Who Love Women's Watches

Large and ostentatious timepieces are increasingly giving way to petite and discreet models in 2024 as the industry embraces smaller watches. Reduced dial sizes and compact cases, together with bracelet-style designs are part of a shift towards understated elegance and subtle sophistication.

Cartier’s Tank model may now be considered a women’s watch, but its distinctive case design drew inspiration from armoured tanks used in the First World War. Recently it’s been embraced by both men and women, despite its relatively small size. Other iconic watches known for their elegance and smaller dimensions include Rolex’s mid-sized Datejust, which comes in steel or a mixture of steel and precious metal.

Favourite brands of those who love women’s watches also include Bulgari and Piaget, both also renowned for their high-end jewellery. The former’s Serpenti watch, which coils around the wrist for maximum visual impact, is both a timepiece and bracelet, while Piaget has recently been lauded for its ultra-slim Altiplano model, mostly fashioned from gold.

Cartier’s Santos, one of the earliest commercially available wristwatches, is also a traditionally woman’s watch now deemed a timeless, unisex classic and comes in a variety of styles and sizes. As a jewellery maison as well as a watchmaker, Cartier has always been extremely popular with fans of women’s watches.

Omega is another legacy brand to consider if you are drawn to smaller, feminine watches, with the brand’s Constellation Ladies and De Ville Ladies collections offering an array of elegant models in steel and gold. In the past twenty years, the watch division of the luxury fashion house Chanel has been synonymous with one timepiece: the J12. Now considered a classic, this ceramic watch was launched in 1999 and comes with either a quartz or automatic movement, and in various sizes from 33mm to 42mm.

If proof was needed that smaller, traditionally women’s watches can be worn by anyone, consider the fact that the greatest heavyweight boxer of all time, Muhammad Ali, sported a Cartier Tank. This iconic dress watch has also been worn by Hollywood heartthrob, Rudolph Valentino and Princess Diana, while contemporary wearers include actors Rami Malek, Angelina Jolie and Jacob Elordi.

Trends in cases sizes seem to fluctuate every few years but there has definitely been an increased appetite for sub-40mm watches in recent years, and it’s just not just the Cartier Tank that has been the smaller watch of choice.

Actor Timothee Chalamet has been spotted wearing one of the more diminutive Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso models—a 33mm Classic Duoface Small Seconds—while the Puerto Rican rapper Bad Bunny famously owns a range of timepieces typically categorised as ladies’ timepieces. And not just any ladies’ timepieces, either. He owns several ornate, gem-clad Patek Philippes and an intricate Audemars Piguet fit for royalty.

As for high-profile women who wear small watches, the list includes everyone from popstar Billie Eilish—who has been seen wearing a rectangular Chanel Boy-Friend model—to Oscar winning actress Julianne Moore wearing a Bulgari Serpenti watch, with its famous wrist-coiling bracelet. At the 2024 Grammy’s, Taylor Swift recently wore a tiny Art Deco watch on a choker, rather than on a strap, while the supermodel Bella Hadid has been seen wearing a diminutive Cartier Panthere.