Women's and Gifts Editor
Hannah Brooks covers women's watches, dress watches and gift guides for WatchesUnder: jewellery watches, everyday steel and how to choose a watch for someone else. Prices in her guides are checked against each brand's own website.
Price Guides
A dress watch is the easiest kind of watch to get right on a small budget, because the rules reward restraint. Here are the five rules, and the watches under $100 that follow them best.
Hannah Brooks·October 9, 2026·5 min read
Price Guides
With $200 to spend, a dress watch can be chosen for the occasion rather than as a compromise. Here is what to wear to the office, to black tie, to a daytime wedding and to dinner, and what each costs.
Hannah Brooks·October 9, 2026·5 min read
Look Expensive
On a woman's wrist, a watch looks expensive when it behaves like jewelry: small, warm, finely made and carrying one precious detail. Here is how to read those details and which watches get them right.
Hannah Brooks·October 9, 2026·5 min read
Look Expensive
A shaped case is the quickest way to stand apart from a wrist full of round watches. We sort square and rectangular watches into four families, explain how each one fits, and name the best affordable picks in every family.
Hannah Brooks·October 9, 2026·5 min read
Look Expensive
The rectangular dress watch with long side rails has been a symbol of quiet taste for about a century. Here is what makes the shape, how it should fit a woman's wrist, and the one good version under $100, plus the step up options.
Hannah Brooks·October 9, 2026·4 min read
Watch Styles
The pale blue green dial went from a waiting list curiosity to one of the most wanted colours in watches. Here is how to tell turquoise from teal and robin egg blue, how to wear the colour, and the affordable watches that get it right.
Hannah Brooks·October 9, 2026·5 min read
Watch Styles
A dress watch has one job: to look right with tailoring and then disappear under the cuff. We sort the best affordable dress watches for men by the occasions they are made for.
Hannah Brooks·October 9, 2026·5 min read
Watch Styles
Some watches are bought to tell the time and some to be looked at. We explain the three ways a watch becomes an art object, and where to find each one without spending gallery money.
Hannah Brooks·October 9, 2026·6 min read
Watch Styles
Roman numerals are the most formal dial a watch can wear, and they come with a few quirks worth knowing. We explain the conventions and pick the best affordable Roman numeral watches for men and women.
Hannah Brooks·October 9, 2026·5 min read
Women's Watches
Women's watches split into a handful of distinct types, and most buying mistakes come from choosing the right price in the wrong type. Here is each type, what it costs, and the watch we would start with.
Hannah Brooks·October 9, 2026·10 min read
Women's Watches
A hundred dollars buys more choice in women's watches than in almost any other part of the market. The catch is that the cheapest watches are rarely the best value. Here is where the money goes, and what we would buy.
Hannah Brooks·October 9, 2026·6 min read
Women's Watches
Between $100 and $200 the question changes from what is good enough to what kind of watch you want. One watch from an established brand, or two with more character? Here is how we would spend the budget.
Hannah Brooks·October 9, 2026·5 min read
Women's Watches
A dainty watch is not just a small dial. The width of the bracelet, the thickness of the frame and what the dial leaves out all decide whether a watch reads as delicate or merely little. These are the small gold watches we would buy.
Hannah Brooks·October 9, 2026·5 min read
Women's Watches
Almost every affordable gold watch is gold tone, and the good ones are easy to tell from the brassy ones once you know where to look. Here is how to judge the colour and the finish, and the gold watches we would buy at each budget.
Hannah Brooks·October 9, 2026·5 min read
Women's Watches
A silver watch is usually a steel watch, and that is its great advantage: there is no coating to wear through. Here is how to choose one by dial colour and bracelet, and the silver watches we would buy.
Hannah Brooks·October 9, 2026·5 min read
Women's Watches
On a bracelet watch the bracelet is the design, and the way it is built decides how it looks, how it sits and how easily it can be sized. Here are the main types and the watch we would choose in each.
Hannah Brooks·October 9, 2026·5 min read
Women's Watches
A watch on a strand of pearls is one of the oldest ideas in women's jewellery watches and one of the hardest to find at a sensible price. Here is what to look for, and the two we would choose.
Hannah Brooks·October 9, 2026·5 min read
Women's Watches
Most vintage looking women's watches borrow from one of four periods, and knowing which one you like makes choosing much easier. Here is each era, what defines it, and the new watch that gets it right.
Hannah Brooks·October 9, 2026·5 min read
Women's Watches
A watch with coloured stones is the one piece in a jewellery box that does two jobs. The colour you choose decides how often you will wear it, so this guide starts there.
Hannah Brooks·October 9, 2026·5 min read
Women's Watches
On a slim wrist, a watch that is a few millimetres too big looks borrowed. Here is how to measure, which sizes work for which wrists, and the small watches that fit properly.
Hannah Brooks·October 9, 2026·4 min read
Women's Watches
A two tone watch solves the problem of mixing metals, and it does it better than any single colour watch can. The details of how the gold is placed decide whether it looks classic or busy.
Hannah Brooks·October 9, 2026·5 min read
Women's Watches
A good wrist stack looks effortless and is anything but. Here are the rules that make one work, five combinations to copy, and how to keep the watch from getting scratched in the process.
Hannah Brooks·October 9, 2026·5 min read
Women's Watches
The right work watch depends less on your job title than on what your day looks like: a boardroom, a clinic, a classroom or a studio. Here is what each one asks of a watch, and what we would wear.
Hannah Brooks·October 9, 2026·5 min read
Women's Watches
Pink has gone from a novelty dial colour to one of the most requested in watches. The shade, the texture and the metal around it decide whether it looks sophisticated or sweet.
Hannah Brooks·October 9, 2026·4 min read
Women's Watches
Choosing a watch is easier as a short series of decisions than as a scroll through hundreds of listings. Here are the seven that matter, in the order we would make them.
Hannah Brooks·October 9, 2026·5 min read
Gift Guides
A matching watch is one of the few groomsmen gifts that gets worn after the wedding. Here is what a full set costs at every level, how a two for one offer changes the arithmetic, and which watch fits which kind of wedding.
Hannah Brooks·October 9, 2026·9 min read
Gift Guides
Nine groomsmen gifts, judged by one question: will he still use it a year from now? A watch is on the list, but it is not the right answer for every wedding party, and we say which ones.
Hannah Brooks·October 9, 2026·5 min read
Gift Guides
The logistics of a groomsmen watch set, worked out in advance: the order arithmetic for every party size, a way to get wrist measurements without asking, and a timeline that leaves room for something to go wrong.
Hannah Brooks·October 9, 2026·7 min read
Gift Guides
The best man did more than stand at the front. His gift should say so without making the groomsmen feel short changed. Our answer, most of the time, is a mechanical watch, and here are the ones worth the step up.
Hannah Brooks·October 9, 2026·6 min read
Gift Guides
The best clue to the watch she will love is already on her wrist, her fingers and her dresser. Here is how to read it, and the watches under $100 that match each kind of jewelry box.
Hannah Brooks·October 9, 2026·5 min read
Gift Guides
You know his wrist, his wardrobe and the watch he already wears. That makes the question less which watch is best and more which watch is missing. Here is how to find the gap, and what fills it.
Hannah Brooks·October 9, 2026·5 min read
Gift Guides
A watch for a boyfriend has to get two things right: his taste, and the size of the gesture. Here is how to judge both, with watches that suit four common styles.
Hannah Brooks·October 9, 2026·4 min read
Gift Guides
The traditional anniversary list has leather, steel, silver and gold on it, and the modern list names watches outright for the fifteenth year. Here is how to turn each theme into a watch, for him or for her.
Hannah Brooks·October 9, 2026·5 min read
Gift Guides
A good his and hers pair is two watches from the same family, sized for two different wrists. Here are five pairings that do it well, and why a two for one offer makes them the easiest joint gift in watches.
Hannah Brooks·October 9, 2026·5 min read
Gift Guides
Two identical watches in two sizes can look like a uniform. Coordinating is subtler and usually better. These are the six rules we use, with examples that show each one at work.
Hannah Brooks·October 9, 2026·4 min read
Gift Guides
Choosing the watch is the enjoyable part. Getting it onto the right wrist, at the right size, with a way back if it is wrong, is where watch gifts fail. This is the checklist.
Hannah Brooks·October 9, 2026·4 min read
Watch 101
You do not need a watch for every outfit, but a few simple rules about metal, leather, size and formality make the one you own look deliberate. Here they are, occasion by occasion.
Hannah Brooks·October 9, 2026·4 min read
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