The wrist watch is a diminutive sized portable timepiece that is able to display time and in some cases, the day, date as well as month and year. In the beginning, the watch was worn in a pocket though in modern times, the watch is a timekeeping device worn on the wrist, which is how it got its name and has become the most popular designation for the watch of today. The first wrist watch was the invention of a person named Patek Philippe who invented it around the end of the nineteenth century and it was then thought of as being a women’s accessory.

Beginning of the Twentieth Century Saw the First Men’s Wrist Watches

It was not until Alberto Santos Dumont asked his friend Louis Cartier for a watch that could be easily used and the latter responded by giving him a leather-band wrist watch that the gents wrist watch first made an appearance in the beginning of the twentieth century. The benefit of wearing a watch on the wrist was first noticed by men who wore it in this way during World War I who did not need to fumble in their pockets to check what time it was and could merely glance at their wrist watch to ascertain the time. As a consequence, even today most Westerners wear their watches on the wrist, a direct consequence of World War I.

The wrist watch of today is far removed from those used in the early twentieth century and has much more complicated functions and offer more functions than just basic time-keeping capabilities and these include chronograph which really means that the watch can act as a stopwatch and the moonphase complication displays the different lunar phases. In addition, the wrist watch may also have a chronometer which means that the watch has had its movements tested and certified to operate within certain limits of accuracy.

As the twentieth century came to an end, Swiss watch makers were alarmed by the new trends in which analog watches were being considered as being obsolete. The Swiss Watch Company or SWATCH was founded and many graphic designers were employed and this signified a change in watch making. From being treated as jewelry pieces or collectible works of art, the wrist watch market became open to the inexpensive but more accurate watches and expanded to take in the extremely expensive watches that were pieces of personal adornment instead of being time pieces and was examples of high achievement in miniaturization and precision mechanical engineering.