In life there are many benchmarks you want to reach. In your 20s you find milestones in your first job, your first paycheque that isn't postdated, your first designer jacket that you wear every day for two months. Then as you enter your 30s you aspire to more: your first real party with unreal people, the first pool villa you stay at and the first precious mechanical watch you get.
Nearing 40, I am working on getting that watch - a stylish, classic, precious timepiece with a complicated movement.
And that watch has to have a leather strap. Every man with a well-rounded lifestyle should own watches with both metallic bracelets and leather straps.
'Usually a leather strap would be for a classical watch worn in an indoor environment; and a metallic strap would be for a more sporty style,' says Wolfgang Sickenberg, CEO of Audemars Piguet Hong Kong.
There is also something about the feel of wearing a watch with leather strap on your wrist. The leather, being a natural material, gains character in time and it 'grows' with the wearer.
I have preferred stainless steel watches with stainless steel bracelets because they have a better chance of surviving me. Don't get me wrong. It's not as if my lifestyle is so sporty that I need sturdy watches; things just mysteriously break around me. But I am ready to enter a new phase of my life and acquire a classic timepiece with a proper leather strap.
