Earlier this week, I came across a book by Russell Smith titled Men’s Style: The Thinking Man’s Guide to Dress. It’s gonna get us started on a last remaining topic key to James Bond watch identification.

One of the things that’s lost in so many of the boysterous discussions of why James Bond “must” wear this watch or that — “because Rolex is known for…,” or “Ian Fleming served in World War II as an officer attached to…” — is a basic understanding of fashion.

The Rolex Precision worn by Sean Connery for his very first “Bond, James Bond” introduction at the Chemin der Fer table in Dr No was no accident.

That can’t be true! It was an oversight, a continuity error. It must’a been Sean Connery’s personal watch. Yeah, that’s the ticket.

James Bond only should’a been wearing the Submariner!

No way. Not in 1962. Not with Terence Young directing and attentive to such details (as he clearly was).

Fifty years ago, appointing James Bond with a diver’s watch in that situation would have surpassed the worst silliness anyone might care to highlight in, say, Moonraker.

As the 1960s unfolded, diver’s watch led, rather than followed “style” choice ubiquity. Probably started when highlighted by the flame of Bond’s cigarette lighter in Goldfinger. Then Rolex advocated it as a fashion direction.

Maybe that’s why Russell Smith doesn’t express much respect for recent James Bond watch choices.

In recent years, several of the world’s most famous watchmakers have launched spectacularly expensive advertising campaigns in an effort to imbue their scientific and technical watches with the glamour of war and adventure, thereby providing the closest contact to war or adventure most men will ever have. Omega paid untold thousands to a Hollywood studio to ensure that Jamesbondman Pierce Brosnan was wearing their Seamaster Professional Divers watch in Tomorrow Never Dies.

Before going on here, I’ll preempt responsible researchers who’ll go on to actually read Men’s Style by noting Mr Smith’s expertise is not James Bond movie trivia. Nor, for that matter, Omega as “first and only watch worn on the moon.”

On the other hand, that’s not the expertise for which we’re looking to him.

All this publicity, of course, is not aimed at yachtsmen and commandos; it’s aimed at you and me, people who just need to know — to within five minutes or so — whether it’s lunchtime yet. The point is not to help you find your bearings in space, but to add to your business suit the invincible manliness and glamour of an astronaut. (Which reminds me of the math professor at my university who walked around with a took kit on his waist, in case he was ever stuck in an elevator and needed to repair it. He didn’t exude glamour. All he exuded was weirdness.)

The higher you are on the social ladder, the further away you are from the actual running of machinery. The train driver may need a stopwatch, but you, sitting in the lounge car reading Proust, don’t even need a second hand.

Neither did James Bond, on his personal time, as he was when were first saw him in the opening scenes of Dr No, some five decades past.

The most elegant watches, the ones that connote education rather than mere riches, are the simplest and plainest.

Lest you think this some outdated, lost bit of understanding, might I remind you that James Bond watch interests currently show exactly this appreciation today. When soliciting funds (from among those of social standing to give) in support of ORBIS, James Bond actor Daniel Craig and James Bond movie product placement partner Omega chose what sort of wristwatch?

Whatever you buy, stick to plain leather straps; metal straps are literally flashy and give that fatal connotation of machinery

Digital watches, needless to say, are unacceptable for any outfit or situation except actual triathlon competition. And avoid all secondary dials, numbers, and helium decompression valves. The value of James Bond, despite what Omega’s marketers attempt to force on him, would not mar his dinner jacket with machinery.

Terence Young knew this when he consciously put a Rolex Precision on Sean Connery’s wrist (irrespective of whether or not it had earlier come from a toss by Albert R Broccoli to someone in the production department for that purpose) in 1962.

Ian Fleming certainly knew it when he specified a Rolex Explorer as the only confirmed brand worn by James Bond as personal choice in the original books.