Etiquette on what to wear to an event hosted by a brand.

Despite my charming personality and general anti-social introverted-ness, I am lucky enough to get invited to a few events in the watch world. Some from retail channels, a few from social organizations, and occasionally from the brands themselves.

Recently I was invited to a brand hosted event and found myself struggling with the proper etiquette for what to wear. While wearing a watch from that brand seemed the Occam Razor answer, the event was on the other side of the world and bringing the piece from the brand was not as easy as it sounded so, I decided to leave it at home and travel with a couple other watches.

The night before the event I tossed and turned trying to sleep with the continued thought that it was just wrong to wear a watch from anyone else to this event. “You should have just brought it.” I said to myself “Was it really that hard to bring one more watch!”

Despite the worry, the next morning I gathered myself and my “off brand” time piece and headed out.

The answer turned out to be, wear what you want.

While many in the room were wearing watches from the brand, the majority were not. They either didn’t own one (turns out brands invite people who aren’t or can’t or haven’t yet joined the ranks of collectors of their brand), or had one but chose to wear something else.

I do believe I wore something that was not “embarrassing” and didn’t clash with my eyes, that would have been just wrong. My watch was appreciated by many in the room, and I was able to see new and exciting pieces from fellow guests that I hadn’t seen.

I suspect that if the event was more specifically a “collectors” gathering I would have ensured I brought the brand’s time piece, but as a more general hosted event I didn’t break any unwritten rules or draw the disapproval of the host.