Watches & Wallets

Watches, wallets and belts — the things carried every day, where the material matters more than the badge.

A leather belt is sized to your waist over the trousers you will wear it with, not to your jeans label, and the two are rarely the same number. Belts here are supplied on a long blank: measure from the buckle prong to the hole you actually use on a belt you already own, and buy to that.

Leather wallets break in rather than wear out. A slim card holder sits better in a back pocket than a full billfold and forces a useful discipline about what gets carried; a zipped section is what stops coins ending up loose in a bag.

On watches, a quartz movement keeps better time than a mechanical one and needs nothing from you but a battery every few years. A leather strap softens to the wrist over a few weeks in a way a steel bracelet never does, but it also dislikes water — take it off before washing up, not after.

More in Men’s: Hats & Accessories, Clothing, Shoes.