Some people -- who seem to be real old-money -- say that a
man either should not wear a watch when wearing a tuxedo; or he should
wear a simple 18 karat yellow gold dress watch with a white enamel face
and no second hand, on an unobtrusive black leather strap.
Clearly,
a lot of people either never heard the rules or are intentionally
breaking them. Almost all of the male movie stars at the Oscars, and a few of the ladies, wear
tuxedos. How many of them break the rule about the watch? Just about all
of them, I think, or at least all of them who wear watches. I googled
George Clooney because I thought he might have accidentally overheard
the rule around 2005 or so. He's either never heard the rule, or he defies it.
George Clooney broke the rule AT HIS WEDDING.
I don't know whether James Bond has ever followed that rule.
And
so maybe those old-money people, when they see video of movie stars in
tuxedos with glaringly incorrect watches, over and over. And they sigh,
"Oh well, movie stars just aren't our sort of people! Still"
Or
-- maybe most old-money people have HEARD of the rule: either no watch
or plain gold watch on black strap with tuxedo -- but, like many of the
rest of us, they don't CARE much about following those old rules, and are sort of
worried about their friends and relatives who still do, obsessively.
Fashion
rules like the "correct' watch to wear with a tux, are useful in
EXCLUDING people: one quick glance and you can see they don't belong to
your class. They're a code, like a secret handshake.
What
I'm unsure about is what present-day old money thinks about these
rules. Are they clinging to them as snugly as ever, and do I know few or
actually none of their names?
Or are they, quite frankly, attempting to broaden the gene pool?
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