Women's Gold Watches

An ideal blend of sophistication and sumptuousness, women’s gold wristwatches are both functional and fancy. A style born from female innovation itself, the wristwatch and its elegant heirs in gold add a fascinating facet to the rich history of time telling.

While the men’s wristwatch came into popularity around the beginning of the 20th century, the women’s wristwatch appeared the century prior. Aristocratic women of the 19th century sought more subdued time-telling devices than the massive pocket watch, and so designers responded with the "wristlet" watch, a variation on the bracelet to include a timepiece mechanism. The popularity of this style was such that, when the wristwatch was introduced for men, it was first referred to as a "strap watch" in an effort to differentiate it from its more dainty feminine counterpart.

This distinction remained in place until the '30s, when the art of the wristwatch and the precision of its mechanisms began to trump such a dichotomy. The fields of men’s and women’s wristwatches thus merged into one, with women’s varieties becoming less jewelry-like.

Quick Facts

• The first documented wrist watch designed for a woman was that created by watchmaker Abraham-Louis Breguet for Caroline Murat, the Queen of Naples and sister to Napoleon Bonaparte
• A testament to the level of luxury that early women’s wristwatches espoused, along with Breguet, watchmakers Patek Philippe and Cartier were the main producers of women’s wrist watches by the end of the 19th century
• In 1927, when London swimmer Mercedes Gleitze was preparing her "vindication" swim across the English Channel, Hans Wilsdorf, then director of Rolex, gifted her a gold wristlet Rolex Oyster watch, the brand’s first waterproof model