Skip to content
The Encyclopedia of Horology

Watch family · Style & purpose

Ladies' Cocktail Watches

Needs research

Small, decorative ladies' wristwatches, often with a covered or folding lid concealing the dial, jewelled or richly finished cases, and a bracelet designed to read as jewellery first and a timepiece second.

Movement & mechanism

  • Very small manual-wind movement, prioritising case slimness and dial concealment over any complication
  • Hinged or sliding cover concealing the dial in many examples, echoing the protective covers of earlier hunter-case pocket watches
  • Case and bracelet frequently set with gemstones or finished in coloured gold or enamel

Identification

  • Very small dial relative to overall bracelet width
  • Hinged or sliding cover over the dial in covered examples
  • Bracelet integrated with the case as a single jewellery composition rather than a separate strap

Terminology

  • Cocktail watch — a decorative, jewellery-led ladies' wristwatch, typically worn for evening or formal wear

Known variations

  • Covered (secret-dial) cocktail watch
  • Open-dial cocktail watch
  • Gem-set bracelet cocktail watch

Pocket-watch ancestry

The concealed, hinged cover found on many cocktail watches is a direct descendant of the hunter-case pocket watch's protective lid, adapted to a wrist bracelet format and to fashion rather than protection as its primary purpose.

Collecting notes

Collected largely within jewellery and ladies' watch collecting, where case, bracelet and gem-setting quality generally weigh more heavily than movement specification.

Related photographs

Prim mechanical wrist watch disassembled part 1
Prim mechanical wrist watch disassembled part 1 — Kozuch, CC BY-SA 3.0. Wikimedia Commons file page
Prim mechanical wrist watch disassembled part 2
Prim mechanical wrist watch disassembled part 2 — Kozuch, CC BY-SA 3.0. Wikimedia Commons file page
Mechanical wristwatch
Mechanical wristwatch — Petar Milošević, CC BY-SA 3.0. Wikimedia Commons file page

No confidently matched photograph of this subject has been found yet. These photographs show a closely related record, and are not examples of the type described on this page.

Sources & references

  1. General literature on ladies' jewellery watches of the mid-twentieth century; systematic maker-by-maker documentation is limited.

Where sources disagree, the disagreement is stated rather than resolved silently.