I love a 5-star hotel. I love dressing up and hanging out in the lobby, serenaded by soft piano music, the murmurs of the crowd, the intermittent chime of the elevator arriving.

I love the sound of clinking teacups, the clopping of dress shoes, and the whirring of luggage wheels on slick marble floors.

I love to dilly-dally in my room with a view, contemplating the day ahead in a bathrobe. I love turndown service, room service, landlines, and monstrously fluffy pillows.

I love flipping through the TV, chilling at the lounge, and writing on hotel stationery. Most of all, however, I love hitting the pool, where a little watch spotting is always in order.

I remember tooling around the pool area of some ritzy hotel in Dubai as a youngster, looking down at the water and the people in it. Fat cats soaked in Speedos and Day-Dates, shapely concubines hanging from their elbows.

Russian playboys flaunted Hublot Big Bangs. Young Khaleeji princes luxuriated in the shade, wearing Royal Oak Offshores. Older ones wore Patek Philippe Nautiluses. British expats wielded gaudy Breitlings. There was, likely, a yuppie in there, wearing a Corum Admiral Cup.

There were mystery men in Panerai Radiomirs, airline pilots in the Rolex GMT of the time, mustachioed eccentrics in crude Ulysse Nardins and tortoiseshell sunglasses. It was a cornucopia of gilt, glam, and excess. No Apple watches; no beaters. Just shiny, high-grade metal all around. No stealth wealth, no reissues, no wearing anything “ironically.” It was—much as it pains me to sound old—a simpler time. 

I was almost twenty and completely taken with the idea of one day owning a luxury watch. More than one was unthinkable, the proverbial bridge too far, as it were. Yet here we are. I own a handful. And I’m as excited about each one as the day I bought it. The one exception is my Z Blue Rolex Milgauss, which I’ve managed to fall out of love with.

There are plenty of reasons for this, but none as pressing as its dimensions: It’s too big and too thick. It took me a while to notice, but once I did, there was no going back. It wears poorly on my flimsy, 16-centimeter wrist. It fits, but only just, which is far from ideal.

It’s top-heavy, too. The nine o’clock end flaps out when my hand is down; when I raise it, the watch flaps the other way. I feel self-conscious in it, as if I can’t quite pull it off. Despite that, it remains in my rotation because “these things are meant to be worn” and all that jazz. Be that as it may, high mileage is unkind to high polish. And as the scuffs and scratches accumulated, they began to bother me, dampening the ownership experience and making me feel bad.

When I bought the Milgauss new in 2019, for a tad over $7k, I thought its value would, over time, outperform that of its brethren. I was wrong. And that doesn’t feel great either. Again, I still wear it, but certainly without any “sprezzatura” and mostly under the cuff, lest I attract stabby thieves. Where’s the fun in that?

The dew, as they say, is off the rose. And the watch no longer does it for me. Until, that is, I take it for a dip. 

Picture this: Four Seasons’ pool, magic hour. I toss my shirt on a daybed, kick my flipflops beneath it, and plop in with a delayed gasp, disturbing the glossy, placid state of my own little section of the hydrosphere. I wade to a corner I can nestle into, back first, and float there; legs kicking in slow-motion, elbows to paving deck. I scan my surroundings: Who’s here? Anyone I know? Anyone wearing a cool watch? Is that Salt Bae over there, curling his stache? Is that guy still in business?

What’s going on with my frequent flyer miles balance? Did I clean it out? I wonder how much a medium-sized boat costs. I can’t believe you can buy a full-grown elephant for five thousand dollars in India. But what am I going to do with an elephant? I hope I’m promoted this year. This hotel ain’t cheap. Is the wife done with her massage? What time is it?

I turn to my Milgauss. A droplet rolls down the crystal, like the missing, runaway cyclops lens that it is. I stare at the watch, but I’m not reading the time. I’m just marveling at it, falling in love all over again. Warm sunlight filters through swaying palms. A light breeze tickles the back of my neck. Lana Del Ray starts playing, though I’m unsure if it’s in my head or the DJ’s choice.

Either way, I’m entranced by the light show on my wrist, a vivid plume of jade and aquamarine bursting from the center of the dial and bouncing back against the rippling blue void underneath. There’s a nostalgic, déjà vu quality to it. It takes me back to chalky skateparks, school trips to the aquarium, toothpaste marbles, glass bricks, Fisherman’s Friends mints passed around in a family car.

Held at an angle, the green crystal pops against the mosaic tiling, like a thin menthol strip jutting out of the bezel and circling the dial. Head on, its round edge glows like a radioactive halo floating above the watch. Beneath it sits a prism-lit disc whose metallic blues, like those of a dragonfly or a TVR Tuscan S, shift and shiver iridescently, broken up by a bright-orange seconds hand shaped like a lightning bolt. To plunge this watch into a clear, sun-dappled body of chlorinated water is to run a current through it. This is where the watch comes alive, in the confines of the swimming pool. The scratches that scar its case fade away when wet.

Worn with swimming shorts and not much else, the fit improves. The man wearing it is happier, more content. He compares himself to no one—for now—and covets nothing. Market value is irrelevant. No one here, it’s safe to say, will try to steal my watch. All’s right with the world.

As I dry off, however, so does the watch and all its luster. The sinking sun isn’t helping, but the roof is the real culprit. Indoors, the watch hangs off my wrist like a clunky, inelegant piece of man-jewelry (gross term). The poor fit is accentuated by the shirt on my back. Neither crystal nor dial knows what to do with the dim, artificial light: they just hold on to it timidly, like a toddler does a whisk or an ashtray.

The seconds hand is no longer cool, only jagged and jarring. Inside and bone dry, the watch is out of its element. It needs a splash of water, a sunny day, a blue backdrop. 

The Milgauss may have been intended for CERN, but it is, in its Z Blue configuration, a pool watch. None of the Milguy (plural) were billed as aquatic pieces, depth rating aside, but that doesn’t matter. Wearing a watch in its natural habitat is a lost cause; anyone who owns a Breitling Cosmonaut or an Omega Moonwatch can tell you that.

Hell, anyone who owns an F1-themed watch can tell you that. The day you find yourself behind the wheel of an F1 car (and you won’t) is the day the FIA lets you wear a watch in it (and they won’t). Natural habitats don’t always make for the best, most picturesque settings for showpieces. Sometimes they do, other times… not so much. I’ll explain. 

A peacock’s natural habitat is the forest, but it looks best on a Maharaja’s manicured lawn. Timberland boots are meant for the construction site, but they look best on a washed-up rapper, bumming around Manhattan in sagging jeans. Speaking of which, blue jeans are meant for California gold prospectors, but they look best on Sydney Sweeney – or so they tell me. Remember that? Good times.

Anyway, where was I? Oh, yes! Forget about CERN. Bring your Z Blue Milgauss to the pool. If you don’t have one, bring something that works just as well; natural habitat be damned.

A hotel pool is a place for status symbols and statement pieces. It’s for glitzy icons with enough nameplate cachet to make Producer Michael blush. It’s for the bees’ knees, for the Lightning McQueen “Kachow,” my man. Parmigiani? Czapek? Ain’t nobody got time for that. Bremont? Carl F. Buchere? Sinn? You’re killing the mood. Apple Watch? What, are we counting laps? This ain’t the Y, it’s the W. Look around. A certain level of “give the people what they want” weighs in when you step out on the patio, urging you to get with the program.

So, play to the crowd. It’s kind of like going to see a cover band. I appreciate deep cuts, but I don’t want to hear them from you. Not here, anyway. How ’bout those hits?

In almost any other setting, I scoff at the safe, crowd-pleasing choice, a visceral reaction instilled in me after years of digging through the deep crevices of Chrono24, trying to uncover hidden gems, and after years of scouring watch forums for collector garde information, invaluable for a writer in the space. I’m a snob and a geek at heart.

Ordinarily, I like quirky, offbeat, slept-on (if not looked down upon) watches, but I don’t want to see them at the hotel pool. Instead, I want to see unimaginative eye rollers. Starter-kit luxury. Old school staples. Beef Wellington in watch form. 

Most Royal Oak Offshore and Vacheron Constantin Overseas models qualify. A Pre-Kern Breitling B01 Chronomat also qualifies. Speedmaster Moonwatch? In yellow gold, yes, but can it swim? Rolex Daytona? Hell yes! Again, in yellow.

Almost all Rolex sports models perform well here, two-tone bluesies and the like. Almost any +10-bar Richard Mille works. As does any Big Bang Hublot, which, in many respects, is the cheaper alternative.

Virtually any Nautilus works, too, and (to a lesser extent) any Aquanaut. Coincidentally, anything that will get you stabbed outside your hotel in London or Paris is meant for the pool that’s in it, water resistance permitting. Keep it in your room’s safe, take it for a dip when the mood takes you, and put it back before going out to dinner. Who says you shouldn’t travel with a Rolex?

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