Give a Watch With a Second Strap

If you want a watch gift to feel like more without spending much more, buy one watch and a second strap. A strap change alters a watch more than almost anything else you could spend the same money on: the same case on brown leather and on a navy fabric strap reads as two different watches. It also solves the awkward problem of a gift being a single object — there is something to open, something to choose between, and a decision the recipient gets to make themselves.

Why this works better than spending more on the watch

Take a $120 watch and a $150 watch. Side by side, almost nobody can tell them apart, because the extra $30 went into things you cannot see from a foot away — a slightly better crystal, a slightly better clasp. Now take that same $120 watch and add a $25 strap in a contrasting material. The recipient now owns something that looks smart on leather for work and casual on fabric at the weekend, and they got to discover that themselves. That is a bigger gift for less money, and it is the reason a spare strap outperforms a price upgrade almost every time.

It has a second, quieter advantage: a strap cannot be the wrong size. A leather strap has holes and a fabric strap threads through a buckle. Neither requires you to know the wrist measurement you probably do not have, which is more than can be said for a metal bracelet — see our guide to resizing a watch band for what that involves.

The one number you need: lug width

A strap has to fit the gap between the two lugs — the horns the strap attaches to — and that gap is measured in millimeters. Get it right and the strap slots in. Get it wrong and it either will not fit at all or leaves a visible gap on each side.

• Men’s watches commonly use 20mm or 22mm. On this site, the Fossil Minimalist, the Fossil Neutra chronograph, the Skagen Holst chronograph and the Invicta S1 Rally all publish a 22mm band width on their listings; the Invicta Speedway publishes 20mm.
• Women’s watches run much narrower, and the number varies far more. The Fossil Scarlette publishes 16mm, the Skagen Anita Lille 12mm, and the Skagen Hagen Micro just 8mm. Never assume on a women’s watch — check the listing.
• Widths are almost always even numbers. If you are measuring an existing watch with a ruler and get 21mm, it is 20mm or 22mm and you have measured the case rather than the gap.

Amazon listings for the watches above publish the band width in the specification bullets, which is where every figure in this section comes from. If a listing does not state it, buy the watch and the strap separately and check the width once it arrives — that is a better outcome than a strap that does not fit.

The watches that make this easiest

Three of our picks are unusually well suited to being given with a second strap.

The Timex Weekender is built around this idea: the strap slips off, Timex sells the watch in a range of strap colors, and the whole exercise costs very little. It is the cheapest watch on this page and the one where a spare strap makes the largest proportional difference.

A plain three-hand dial on a 22mm brown leather strap — the most standard, most easily replaced width there is, and a dial quiet enough that any strap color works against it.

Skagen’s listing for the Holst describes the 22mm leather band as interchangeable, so the second strap is the intended accessory rather than a modification.

The watches where this does not work

Integrated bracelets. Some watches — the Tissot PRX is the obvious example on this site — have a bracelet that is shaped to flow into the case rather than sit between conventional lugs. A standard strap will not fit one, and a strap that does exist for it is model-specific. Buy those watches for the bracelet, not for the strap options.

Very narrow women’s watches. At 8mm or 12mm the choice of replacement straps narrows sharply and the fitting is fiddly. On those, the mesh band that comes on the watch is usually the best thing available for it.

Which second strap to choose

Pick the opposite of what the watch is wearing. If it arrives on leather, add a fabric or NATO-style strap for a casual look; if it arrives on a metal bracelet or mesh, add leather so it can dress up. Our NATO vs leather comparison covers the difference in feel, durability and formality in full.

One honesty note: we do not name a specific aftermarket strap here. We recommend products by reading published specifications against a live listing, and the generic strap market is full of unbranded sellers whose listings we cannot verify the same way. So the advice is process rather than product — buy the width you confirmed, from a seller with a clear returns policy, and prefer the watch brand’s own strap if it sells one. You can read exactly how we pick if you want the reasoning.

How to present it

Put the watch on the strap you think they will like most and wrap the second one separately, or leave it in the box alongside. The point is that the second strap is a choice you are handing over, not a spare part — framing it that way is what turns a modest watch into a gift with some thought behind it. Our guide to presenting a watch gift has the rest of the staging.