What Is Your “Palate Cleanser” Wristwatch Following Watches And Wonders?

From a watch with a full-ceramic bracelet from Tudor and a space watch from IWC to a timepiece by H. Moser & Cie. that requires the literal pushing of a button (pump) to power it, this year’s Watches and Wonders did not disappoint. In the frenzy of new watches and watch brands flexing their engineering, design, or marketing muscles, sometimes, it’s nice to go back to some basic fun. Watches and Wonders is a blur!

I’m not sure about you, but after a major flurry of watch releases, I often find myself looking to spend some time with a simple three-hand diver or field watch. Last year, after the show, my go-to was the Tudor Black Bay 58 in blue, which I’ve owned for close to five years now. It is a familiar, comfortable, and adventure-proof companion.

My old friend: the Tudor Black Bay 58

I don’t have to think about it. I don’t have to justify it. This one, I just put on and go. There’s a kind of relief in that. Horological overload is real. It might sound dramatic, but there is a real sense of cognitive saturation that sets in after spending days surrounded by new releases.

Every watch is trying to do something — be thinner, tougher, more historically accurate, more avant-garde, or more technically impressive than the last. Even when I love what I’m seeing, I can feel my attention fragmenting. The irony is that the more impressive the watches become, the more I find myself craving the opposite experience when I get home. I want something casual, relaxed.

Adventuring with the Doxa Sub 300T Divingstar

This year, I decided to take a very fun Doxa Sub 300T Divingstar on a camping trip out of town. It afforded some time to reflect on the show and watches that don’t compete for attention every time I glance at my wrist. That’s where the idea of a “palate cleanser” starts to make sense to me. As a side note, our managing editor, Nacho, has also acquired a Doxa Sub 300T, in the classic Professional (orange) colorway. I can see him enjoying many adventures with it in the future!

I find that Watches and Wonders can leave me in a slightly strange headspace. On one hand, I am genuinely energized by what I see. The sheer breadth of creativity, technical ambition, and historical reinterpretation is something I still enjoy immensely. On the other hand, at some point, everything begins to blur together, with so many cases, dials, and high-complication releases.

IWC’s answer to the space watch, one of my favorite releases from Watches and Wonders this year

Ruminations after Watches and Wonders

And that’s usually when I start thinking about balance — not in the abstract sense of industry trends or collector behavior but, rather, balance on my wrist. What do I actually want to wear when I stop thinking about watches as a profession and start thinking about them as companions again? I’ve noticed a fairly consistent pattern in myself over the years. The food analogy is obvious, but it works. After something rich, complex, or intensely flavored, you don’t want more of the same. You want something neutral or comfortable that resets your sense of taste. I think watches operate similarly, at least for me.

After a flurry of perpetual calendars, incredible alloys, and conceptual design pieces, I don’t want to “follow” anything. I want to reset my perception of what a watch is supposed to do. And that usually means going back to basics — time, legibility, durability, and comfort. It’s almost therapeutic in a way, a reminder that watches existed perfectly well before they became objects of constant novelty.

Going outdoors changes everything

This year, I made a slightly different choice. Instead of returning to the familiar certainty of my Tudor, I took a Doxa Sub 300T Divingstar on a camping trip outside the city. That decision wasn’t particularly calculated. It just felt right in the moment. And what I found interesting was how quickly the watch stopped being “interesting” in the way I think about watches professionally. It became something else entirely.

My Doxa served as a splash of color against a very unstyled backdrop of tents, firelight, water, and dust. Out there, there is no watch-industry context, no comparison charts, no novelty cycle. There’s just time passing in a very literal sense. And the Divingstar fits perfectly into that environment. It’s bold, almost unapologetically so, but it doesn’t feel out of place when being used for what it was designed to do.

Familiarity versus novelty

One of the things I keep coming back to is how differently I relate to familiarity after a show like Watches and Wonders. Brands are trying to prove they are evolving, pushing forward. But on my wrist, familiarity is often exactly what I want. That’s why the Black Bay 58 has stayed with me for so long. That watch doesn’t evolve every season. It doesn’t need to. It just quietly continues being exactly what it is, and in the weeks after a show full of reinvention, that stability feels more valuable than ever.

What I do think is that simplicity becomes more visible after exposure to complexity. When I spend time pondering the most technically ambitious watches in the world, I become more aware of how much engineering and design thought can be packed into a relatively small object. But that awareness doesn’t eliminate my appreciation for simpler pieces; it actually strengthens it. Because once you’ve seen everything a watch can be, you start to appreciate what it doesn’t need to be.

I’ve come to think of this cycle as part of the rhythm of being involved in watches at a professional level. The exposure, the excitement, the analysis, the comparison… It all builds up over time. And then, almost instinctively, we reach a corrective phase. We return to wearing watches that don’t require interpretation — ones that simply tell the time and disappear into the background of daily life.

For me, that might be a blue Tudor Black Bay 58 most weeks or something like the Doxa Sub 300T Divingstar when I want a bit more character without the cognitive load of novelty. Either way, the function is the same. Reset. Rebalance. Relearn what “enough” feels like.

Closing thoughts

If Watches and Wonders represents some of the peak of horological ambition each year, then the weeks that follow represent something equally important — the return to baseline. I don’t see the “palate cleanser” watch as a downgrade or a retreat. I see it as a necessary part of the cycle. Without it, everything risks becoming noise. And once things go quiet again, it becomes much easier to hear what I actually enjoy.