A few weeks ago I decided to wear my Tudor Black Bay for the first time in several months. It’s a watch I love that I’ve written about many times on this website, but I’d been enjoying other more recently acquired pieces for some time and the Black Bay had been collecting proverbial dust in the watch box. So on a chilly winter afternoon I wound it up and set the time. But then, instead of closing the bracelet around my wrist and going about my business, I hauled out my little set of watchmaking tools to size the bracelet. Because the actual reason I hadn’t worn it in so long wasn’t entirely a result of being in the honeymoon phase with other watches, it was knowing I had a small chore in front of me if I didn’t want the watch to dangle pathetically from my wrist, and for a while it just seemed easier to ignore it.
Over the last year, in an effort to become healthier and, you know, live longer, I’ve lost a significant amount of weight, and it’s had a dramatic effect on how my watches wear, and how I think about them. I’d been putting off an afternoon of resizing all of my watch bracelets in part because I was nervous that once I had my 41mm Black Bay on my now half inch smaller wrist, it would disappoint somehow. I gravitated toward smaller watches all summer and fall of last year as the shape of my body began to noticeably change, wearing my larger watches more sparingly and over shorter stretches of time.
I took three links out of the Black Bay and adjusted the T-Fit to the tightest position and the bracelet fit just a little loose on my wrist (so, perfect for me, as I don’t love a super tight fit). When I looked down at the watch to check the time, it definitely appeared more commanding than it had when I first picked it up a few years ago. At 41mm, this Black Bay always felt like a “medium” sized diver to me, particularly this updated reference with a slightly slimmer case profile. It’s now definitely in what I would consider, on me, to be slightly oversized territory. That’s not a bad thing at all. I still find the watch to be comfortable and pretty easy to wear, and I’d never say it’s too big or that I can’t pull it off. But the psychology of how I’ll decide to choose it for the day is probably different forever. This was always my most neutral watch, the one I went for when I wanted to feel anonymous as a watch wearer. But it has more presence now and that’s something new to consider.
For as long as I’ve been writing about watches and throwing that lug to lug measurement into articles, in the back of my mind I’ve always felt that for me personally it was something of an empty stat. With a 7.5 inch wrist, there are very few watches where the lug to lug is truly too long to the point that the watch literally doesn’t fit. But at 7 inches, there will be watches that have a real overhang problem. And even if the lug to lug isn’t so broad that a watch can’t be worn, the visual and aesthetic implications become more pronounced. My Zeitwinkel and Arcanaut watches now sit right at the edge of what I think looks good on me.
This is a dilemma I frankly never expected or even would have recognized as a possibility. To be clear, it’s a good problem to have. I am healthier and happier now than I was a year ago, and if some of my watches are no longer a good fit because of their size and mine, it’s not such a big deal. Anyone who collects watches knows the feeling of a watch simply falling out of favor, so I’m not unaccustomed to recognizing that a particular watch might no longer have a place in my collection.
But the thing is: I love my Zeitwinkel, and my Arcanaut. These are watches that mean something to me and that I’ve bonded with in the way watch enthusiasts talk about in that heady way that makes outsiders (probably) roll their eyes at the way we romanticize a connection to a physical object. But whatever, we feel the way we feel. And when I put on my Zeitwinkel and realize that it’s butting right up against the line of being in that unwearable category, well, that’s a complex thing to process. I want to continue to enjoy it, and I’ll always appreciate it for what it is as a watch, and the role it played in shaping my taste as a collector. But I’m honestly not sure how I’d approach a situation where it just no longer becomes practical for me to wear or own it.
At this point, I haven’t decided to sell any watches purely because they’re too big for me, and I don’t know if I will (just as I can’t really predict the size and shape of my wrist six months, a year, or longer out from now). I will say, though, that for watches that I own that are 40mm and under, the experience of wearing them has changed substantially as an owner of a 7 inch wrist. I was never shy about wearing watches that were more traditionally sized, and have written frequently about how a large wrist can pull off a real range of case shapes and sizes. But putting on a 36mm watch now is an altogether different experience. Instead of feeling a little like cosplay, watches in this neighborhood now feel truly well proportioned, and I’m excited by the prospect of experimenting with watches I might not have considered previously because of their small size.
I’ve been collecting watches for a long time, and when the topic of wrist size comes up, I’ve always reflexively mentioned my 7.5 inch wrist and assumed (correctly, I think) that it was on the larger side of average. It’s taken a real mental adjustment over these last months to realize that something has fundamentally changed, and that I’m experiencing something new as a watch enthusiast for the first time in years. And that’s actually pretty exciting, because new experiences are what we’re all chasing. I’ve certainly had my share, both professionally and personally: my first luxury watch purchase, the first time I wrote about a watch for this website, the first time I went to Switzerland for Watches & Wonders. This newness though is fundamentally different because it’s literally about the wearing experience and the baked-in mental approach we all take to approaching how we think about watches.
While I have mixed feelings about what all of this might mean for some of the watches I’ve acquired that have become important to me, I’m choosing to embrace the next chapter as a life change that has the potential to reshape how I view collecting. These things happen at the micro and macro level all the time, sometimes without us even realizing it. This one snuck up on me in a way I didn’t expect and now feels impossible to ignore.
I’m wearing the Black Bay now as I type, and realizing that while the body that I had while I built my collecting identity has changed, the watch itself still has meaning. It’s a Black Bay, after all, and it still holds the same memories of trips abroad, collecting meetups, and refining my own taste at a granular level. Resizing a bracelet doesn’t erase any of that, it’s an acknowledgement of a more personal shift.
Zach Kazan
2026-02-24 14:00:00