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Originally Posted by kisho
Wow thanks for such a thorough post. I'm liking the Traditional Minimalism examples most, especially the Breguet and the ALS. However, for ALS, I'd choose this Saxonia over the Thin. I must like my numerals over ticks, especially in a stylish typeface like the Breguet.
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Through my searches, I found that the most expensive watches all have some sort of gold casing. Even the ALS pictured above is in white gold. Are there any benefits from this? Like weight perhaps or is it just for the "bling" factor?
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I really love that Breguet model as well. I like it so much that I almost bought it instead of the Marine that ended up being my collection's representative from Breguet. The sole reason I didn't get a 5177 is that I feared it'd compete, unsuccessfully, for wrist time with my Patek 3520. So I got the Marine, which I never feel inclined to wear on the occasions when I would wear the 3520.
The 3520 has been my "uber dressy" watch ever since I got it back in the early 1990s (they didn't then cost anything like what the comparable current model, the 5120, does today) and it has that same minimalist vibe, albeit with a neoclassical edge. Then again, neoclassical style/design is very "me." The thing is that I pretty much only wear it with formal attire or very, very dressy suits.
For example, if I were to build another home for myself, it'd look not too different from the West Building of the National Gallery of Art in D.C. I don't know why, but I just love how, at least to my eye, neoclassical lines and themes work well with the designs from the 15th century to the 21st century. I just feel it is both modern and classical at the same time. The 3520/5120 strikes me that way as well, and a bit more so than does the Breguet 5177.
FWIW, there was also an Arabic numeral version of the 3520.
Like the Roman numeral version, it's ~33mm in diameter. A lot of folks these days, presumably because watch companies pushed larger watches beginning around 2000 or so, a lot of folks would think it "too small." There's no question that it's noticeably smaller than are many contemporary watches, but "too small" isn't what I think it is, especially for a simple, un-bejeweled dress watch, which, IMO, is supposed to look nice, be subtly styled so as to "work" with a wide variety of looks, and compliment one's outfit, but not draw attention to itself.
The 3520/5120 does exactly that. Put it on a grosgrain band rather than skin strap and it dresses down quite aptly and looks great with more casual outfits such as khakis (long or short) or jeans and a starched shirt.
This isn't the 3520/5120, but it's close enough that you'll get the idea.
The Nomos you got will have the same sort of sartorial flexibility. If the mood strikes you, give a grosgrain bands or NATO-style bands a try. (J. Press sell lots of different colors of grosgrain bands. Brooks Brothers and J. Crew do too.)
If nothing else, if one plans to wear daily a watch that was delivered with a skin strap, opting to mount it on a grosgrain or NATO-style strap keeps the skin one in good order for when one wants to dress up and be fancy.
I don't know about Nomos' straps, but I do know that sometimes finding a suitable replacement skin strap can be a pain in the butt. I found that I'd put off replacing one that was beginning to show signs of wear and invariably, the time would come when I really wanted a nice, shiny skin strap, but mine was looking a bit long in the tooth. Then I'd find myself having to fit in a rush to some store to get whatever they had that would fit the watch instead of getting one that I really wanted.
(Yes, it's entirely, as they say, a "first world problem." But hey, I spend multiple thousands of dollars on multiple watches, and, at the risk of seeming immodest, I live what, by any standard, is surely a "charmed life." What other kind of problems am I going to have? LOL)
All the best.