Pocket Watches with PC

[Troglodyte]

No watch with evening clothes rule is an entirely new one to me...

I wonder if the thinking behind it is a development of not looking at your watch, as this suggests you have rudely mismanaged your social calendar. It says you are looking for the earliest opportunity to give your hostess the slip, so you can rush off and disappoint another by being late. Not the done thing at all, old chap.

Pocket watches are generally considered smarter than the wrist-watch, and with evening clothes they are regularly seen (and always have been) here in the UK. His cufflinks and watch-chain are just about the only items of jewelry a man is permitted by convention, but he is free to indulge himself.

As 'silver' buttons have been the form with Highland dress for generations, a silver watch and chain would seem the obvious choice, and why not? For form's sake, his cufflinks ought to be the same metal - although there are some that (mistakenly) subscribe to the silver for daytime, only gold for evening rule.

Discretion is the name of the game here, and a fine chain (no-one will ever see your watch, but they might catch a glimpse of the cigar-cutter you keep on the other end of the chain, when you call it into action after the loyal toast) of discrete superior quality is probably your safest bet. If your grandfather has forgotten to leave you one in his will, or it's already gone to a cousin, you will find that antique shops are full of unwanted watch-chains being sold at about their scrap-metal value. And the choice is wide and varied.

The same is true for watches themselves. A jewelled Swiss movement in a hunter or half-hunter case with machine-turned decoration, that keeps time to within a couple of seconds a week, can be bought for less than you might pay for a Chinese-made quartz wristwatch - and there are plenty of specialist antique watch dealers selling online.

The proportions of evening waistcoats tend not to lend themselves well to the single-strand chain with T-bar pendant arrangement, but they do look good. The long, single-strand chain that reaches from one pocket to the other, that gives a pleasing drape to the chain, has long been a favourite. An alternaltive is for the chaing to be looped around one of the waistcoat buttons to produce a similar effect but with two drapes.

Go for it..!