Watch Wednesday Thursday (4/1/10)

Guess I was supposed to post this last night, but what fun is consistency? I got this watch (on eBay, of course) a couple of months ago, after seeing it in a Fossil store in Manhattan when I made my brief visit there just before Christmas.

Back in the early 90s I was a little nuts for Fossil watches, the way some people were for Swatch watches in the 80s. It was mainly because at the time a lot of Fossil's stuff had a decidedly retro vibe. As they moved away from that, I lost interest, and shortly afterward I started buying old-looking watches that were, you know, actually old. I hadn't paid much attention to Fossil in a long time, other than an occasional glance at their counter when passing through Macy's.

So this watch kind of jumped out at me with its combination of restraint and boldness. I find the large, blocky numerals eye-catching. I like the blue accents (this pic isn't showing it very well, but the upper right quadrant of the bezel is a distinctive metallic blue, which ties in to the blue second hand and dial stamp. It's also available with orange accents instead of the blue, and now apparently in an all-black version as well, though I don't think that one works as well, because the contrast of the punchy color is kind of the point.

[Late addition: apparently I missed it last night due to fatigue, but this style is now also available with dark red accents, though it comes on a truly fugly striped nylon military-style strap.]

Also, this watch is pretty big: the case is 45 mm across and well over a centimeter thick, which is pushing the limit of what I can realistically wear because I have thin wrists. It came on a blue rubber strap, which I assumed would be junky like the ones that come on Casios, but it isn't--it's actually quite nice. I put on this black faux-carbon fiber strap with blue stitching (again, you can't see it very well) to tone it down a little, but when the weather warms up I'm going to switch back to the blue one, to bold it up again.