The 3 Best Watches for Women On The Go: Timepiece Expert and Bazaar Arabia Columnist, Elizabeth Doerr, Shares Her Picks
Women often look for clothing that works as hard as they do and can easily move from a day at the office to a dinner out with friends. The same holds true for what they wear on their wrists…
Watches are many things to many people: status symbols, jewellery, fashion statements, and to some even just timekeepers. For me, watches are certainly a mixture of all of the above with more than a pinch of my love of mechanics thrown in. Watches reflect my mood, my wardrobe, and above all, the activities planned for my day.
Oftentimes we need a watch that goes along with everything we do in a day: running from work to an appointment, to picking up the kids, to the store, and everything in between. As a modern woman, almost every day I need a watch that can go along with everything. A so-called everyday watch. Here are a few great ones I saw over the past year.
The 3 Best Watches for Women On-The-Go (2022)
Armin Strom Lady Beat
The first watch designed with women in mind by Armin Strom, the Lady Beat was indeed created with the idea of being the perfect all rounder. In my opinion, it more than fullfills the criteria – and with some serious panache thanks to the similarities it shares with its “big brother” Gravity Equal Force from which the three appealing movement bridges are visible on the dial stem. These technical-looking elements belong to the automatic movement, which is partially visible on the front thanks to the sensually curved dial only covering part of it. This busy but not-too-busy area of the dial – some might say the most interesting part of it – offers quite an intriguing contrast with the almost sterile time display to the left. The generous power reserve of 70 hours ensures that it won’t run down over the weekend should lounging be the order of the day.
Armin Strom went the extra mile in ensuring that every detail of this watch is on point, beginning with the 38 mm case large enough to easily read the time and make a statement but not so big as to be overbearing or disproportionate. Lugs can take a watch right out of the sweet spot, so Armin Strom connected the strap straight to the case, adding a dash of 1970s sensuality in the process. A perfect fit.
A. Lange & Söhne Little Lange 1 Moon Phase with aventurine dial
The Lange 1 is one of the watch industry’s treasures, a wristwatch symbolising hope and resurrection and featuring a design that was close to shocking at the time of its introduction in 1994. It is now nothing less than iconic.
This variation of the Lange 1 Moon Phase adds an aventurine dial, an unusual design move from this classically inclined maker, but one that is nothing short of genius: this watch’s countenance comes off like a cloudless night sky under the best visibility conditions thanks to a dial that is painstakingly made of three different pieces of aventurine glass, a material that was ‘discovered’ in Murano, Italy due to a happy accident in the 17th century.
The out-of-this-world ensemble is accompanied by eight star-shaped markers beautifying the off-centred subdial for the indication of time. The brightest star of this sparkly show is however the white gold disk representing the moon.
Displayed against the same aventurine background, it is adorned with no less than 628 hand-painted stars. Only requiring a full day’s correction once every 122.6 years, the mechanism tracks the lunar cycle with extreme accuracy. A. Lange & Söhne put the three parts of this aventurine glass over a solid silver dial base, which results in the creation’s distinct sense of depth and extra shine.
This extremely proportionate 36.8 mm timepiece in white gold is available with a smooth bezel or one set with 56 brilliant-cut Top Wesselton diamonds (approx. 1.2 ct) and comes on a sparkling dark blue leather strap. Its now-classic manually wound movement, proudly displaying its Saxon heritage in both structure and decoration, has a power reserve of 72 hours, which allows you to conveniently put it in your jewellery box on Friday night and pick it up again on Monday morning without having to re-set any of the functions.
Zenith Chronomaster Original
2021 marked the first time a close tribute to Zenith’s original El Primero Reference A386 of 1969 – the first automatic chronograph in history – entered the brand’s permanent collection in a stainless steel case. I applaud this timepiece so close in looks to its iconic predecessor with the heart beating in high frequency at 5 Hz for the way that it fits into the prevalent 2021 tastes of contemporary watch lovers as hardly another watch currently does.
And I appreciate it in every new iteration that 2021 had in store. But I love this 38 mm timepiece most in one of its final 2021 iterations, which includes a white mother-of-pearl dial base and three blue- or grey-hued mother-of-pearl chronograph subdials showing the accuracy of the automatic stopwatch movement to one-tenth of a second. And then there is the barest splash of sparkle on the lugs – for me a fitting cherry on top.
From Harper’s Bazaar Arabia’s January 2022 issue.