Who Watches the Watchmen (Our Chit Chat Thread)

That explains it! I'm Asian. 🤗 Oh wait, I can't be. I'm far too prone to indolence. 😁

Though we all tended to have smaller wrists in years gone by. Over the years I've collected vintage straps and bracelets in keeping with the era of some of the watches I have(there is no end to this madness) and the stuff of the earlier part of the last century is definitely shorter. If I buy a new strap that's sized average I'm either on the last hole or need to make a new one, with stuff from 80 years plus ago I've got at least three or four adjustment holes to go.

I was reading something years ago where I think it was Harrods who have sizing sales going back over a century and people were much smaller of frame on average, not so much shorter, though we were generally shorter, but just smaller of frame. We've gotten bigger. I don't mean fatter either, just bigger overall. Even our shapes show a trend. There were apparently more women with 'hourglass' figures on average in the past. Diet it seems is the thing. And a lack of childhood illnesses with it. Back in the medieval the rich like the aristocracy and clergy were almost a different species to the poor. They were taller and broader and tended to live longer too. Diet again seem to play a major part.

Hmm that's odd alright Ni. I've had a couple of these, the first I saw them was on the MWR forum. IIRC they were French navy straps originally. Any I've seen were like your black one. TBH I don't know how you could even use your grey/orange one comfortably. 🤔 Well all you could do is hook it into the buckle I suppose, but as S noted not comfortable. Though I stuck mine in a drawer as TBH even the correct ones I found uncomfortable.

Down the years I've had a couple of strap fails, including some high quality ones. EG way back I got a Jurgens of Germany G10 made from the leather from a BUND pilot's jacket(As you do. it was late, wine may have been taken. We've all been there, even the teetotalers 😂). 200 odd quid IIRC. Anyway it showed up beautifully made, minus one of the keeper rings. And was the wrong size. Now he was very quick to sort it, but it can happen.

The above said, values have softened a little with them. They were higher during the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11 for example. Plus many areas of the vintage market are stagnant. Fewer being sold and fewer buyers overall.

Mick Jagger's generation were war babies and they grew up with rationing until 1954 so that would likely have had an effect. The British bands of the 1960's were pretty much all rail thin. I was watching that Beatles Get Back sessions flic recently and with some exceptions like their road manager who was a bigger built lad pretty much everyone you saw would be seen as 'skinny' today. Then again the US didn't have rationing and on average they were thinner than today too. Irish people of the same vintage were thin as well. People getting fatter seems to come in post the 1970's. Food got cheaper, more sugar got added(fat is expensive, sugar is dirt cheap), more people getting takeaways and eating out and a wider variety of once very novel foods came along.

I read an article from somewhere I can't remember that noted that outside of actually very obese people( of which there are more) those over forty haven't really gotten that much fatter over time, it's in those under forty where it's become more of a thing. Essentially it said we're getting 'middle aged spread' at younger ages. It can depend on culture too. Most of this is in the west, Asians haven't gained bulk to nearly the same degree. Even within Europe there are differences. The French buck the overall trend by being generally thinner and staying thinner throughout their lifetimes. I've read other research that shows things like oestrogens from plastics, foods etc are causing men to get fatter younger and testosterone dropping over generations is very much a thing. A 60 year old in the 1980's had a higher testosterone level than a 60 year old today. Oestrogen mimics in our environment, higher stress, crappy diets seem to be the general causes.