Why 36mm Won: The Case Against Oversized Watches

The watch industry spent 20 years selling you diameter. Independent brands were selling proportion instead.

Somewhere around 2005, the watch industry decided wrists were billboards. Cases ballooned to 42, 44, 46mm. Panerai built a cult around it. Hublot made it a personality trait. And for a while, it worked — if your goal was making sure everyone in the room noticed your watch before they noticed you.

That era is over. The most interesting watches being made right now sit between 36 and 38mm. And the brands making them aren't Rolex or Omega scrambling to re-release vintage sizes. They're independents who never chased the trend in the first place.

Big watches solved a problem nobody had

The oversized trend started with tool watches. Dive bezels, pilot crowns, chronograph subdials — these needed real estate. Fair enough. But the market took a functional requirement and turned it into an aesthetic mandate. Suddenly, dress watches were 42mm. Three-handers were 44mm. The logic was gone. What remained was insecurity dressed up as presence.

Here's what actually happens when you wear a 44mm dress watch: the lugs overhang your wrist. The dial overwhelms your cuff. The proportions fight everything around them. You don't look confident. You look like you're trying to.

Proportion is the whole game

A well-proportioned 36mm watch does something a 42mm watch almost never manages: it disappears into your outfit until someone looks closely. And when they do, it rewards attention.

This isn't about small wrists or retro nostalgia. It's geometry. A 36mm case with short lugs, a slim bezel, and a dial that uses its space properly will wear larger than the number suggests. A 42mm case with thick bezels and a cluttered dial will wear like a hockey puck.

The number on the spec sheet is the least interesting thing about a watch's size. Lug-to-lug, case thickness, bezel-to-dial ratio — these determine how a watch actually sits on your arm. Independent brands understand this because they're designing watches, not filling a size bracket in a product matrix.

Who's actually doing this well

Baltic has built half their catalogue around 36-38mm cases. The Aquascaphe Dual Crown at 38mm wears like it was designed for your wrist specifically — because the lug-to-lug is kept tight and the case curves where it should. Compare that to any mainstream 38mm diver and you'll feel the difference in five seconds.

Farer's Land collection sits at 37mm with a height under 10mm. On paper, modest. On wrist, it commands attention through colour and finishing rather than through taking up space. That's confidence.

Kurono Tokyo's offerings at 37mm prove that a smaller case doesn't mean playing it safe. Hajime Asaoka's dials are some of the most visually intense in watchmaking, and they work precisely because the canvas is disciplined.

Christopher Ward dropped the Sealander to 36mm and it became one of their best-reviewed pieces. Not because the market demanded 36mm specifically, but because the watch finally felt resolved. Nothing wasted, nothing fighting for attention.

The mainstream got the memo late

Tudor re-released a 36mm Black Bay. Longines brought back 36mm heritage pieces. Omega shrank the Aqua Terra. These are all fine watches. But notice the pattern: the big brands are following, not leading. They spent years pushing 41-43mm as the default, and now they're walking it back because the market moved without them.

The market moved because independent brands — the ones actually listening to what people wear rather than what focus groups say they want — proved that smaller cases sell when the design earns it.

This isn't minimalism. It's editing.

There's a lazy reading of the smaller-watch trend that frames it as minimalism, or as some pendulum swing that'll reverse in five years. That misses the point.

What's actually happening is that buyers got better. The people buying watches in 2026 have seen thousands of watches on Instagram, Reddit, YouTube. They can spot lazy design. They know what lug overhang looks like. They've tried on enough 42mm watches to know that diameter alone doesn't create presence.

When you've seen enough, you start valuing editing over excess. A 36mm watch that's been properly designed is an edited object. Every millimetre is intentional. There's nowhere to hide bad proportions or lazy finishing.

The practical argument nobody talks about

A 36-38mm watch fits under every shirt cuff without snagging. It doesn't bang against door frames. It doesn't dominate a video call. It transitions from the office to the weekend without looking like you forgot to take off your dive computer.

These sound like small things. They're not. A watch you can wear every day without thinking about it is a watch you'll actually wear. The 44mm statement piece that lives in a drawer because it doesn't work with half your wardrobe has failed its only job.

What to take from this

• Ignore the diameter. Look at lug-to-lug, thickness, and bezel-to-dial ratio instead.
• Try 36-38mm before you dismiss it. Most people who say "too small" haven't actually worn one properly.
• Look at independents first. Baltic, Farer, Kurono, and Christopher Ward are designing for proportion, not for a product line chart.
• Versatility beats presence. The best watch is the one you reach for every morning, not the one that gets the most comments.
• Trust your wrist, not the spec sheet. If it looks right when you glance down, the number doesn't matter.