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Pocket Watch Accessories

Fobs and Watch Chains

According to this comprehensive guide to pocket watches and chains, the mid-17th century marks the point when the English began to wear their timepieces in small "fob" pockets sewn either inside the waistband of their breeches or on the outside of their waistcoats. 

When worn in the waistcoat pocket, the watch was attached to a watch chain.   When worn in the breeches pocket, the watch was attached to a fob (named after the pocket) which was a strip of fancy fabric that hung outside the waistband and was weighted down with an antique wax seal  (a small metal stamp that imprinted a mark into the wax that was used to seal envelopes) or some other personal memento.

Watch fob worn with English Regency evening wear, 1807.	1868 "single Albert" watch chain worn with evening wear in UK.	Gold Edwardian pocket watch with "double Albert" watch chain.

During the Regency era it appears that the waistband option was preferred to the waistcoat option.  Then as timepieces became thinner the practice of wearing them in the waistcoat pocket became the norm and was championed by Queen Victoria's husband Prince Albert who also introduced the styles of watch chain named after him.  The "single Albert" chain was connected to the pocket watch at one end and the other end was attached to a waistcoat button thus creating a single "U" of draped chain between the pocket and button.  The "double Albert" chain did not attach to the waistcoat but instead passed through one of its buttonholes (or a purpose-made hole) and was attached to a second object kept in the other waistcoat pocket, thus doubling the number of "U"s created by the draped chain.  With this style there was often a very short piece of additional chain attached to the main chain at the buttonhole which would be used to carry a watch key or another personal memento.

Period etiquette guides reveal that by the mid-Victorian era pocket watches were being worn with evening waistcoats in the same manner as with day wear.  However, the drapes of thick chain and numerous dangling appendages were not harmonious with understated evening finery and the practice pretty much died out by the end of the century.  In 1901 the American conduct guide Etiquette for All Occasions remarked on the watch chain having become unpopular with young men and said that it was worn by older men only "if the links are small and the whole effect very inconspicuous." 

Meanwhile, the fob continued to appear with evening wear until it fell out of favor after World War I.  It later made a brief resurgence with full dress around 1939 as part of that period's return to Edwardian formal tradition.  Said Esquire in January 1940, "The old fashioned Georgian seal watch fob has returned, and is worn on the left side for convenience".  

1901 example of fob worn with American dinner suits.	Watch fobs with Edwardian full dress in US, 1904.	Formal Victorian fobs were often made of a black grosgrain ribbon.
Although outré with evening wear after 1900 the watch chain still appeared now and then as seen in this circa 1930 portrait of Clark Gable.	The last hurrah for the watch fob circa 1939.

Key Chains

At the turn of the century there appeared an alternative method for storing the watch in one's evening trousers: the fine-link key chain.  Etiquette for All Occasions described this option in detail in 1901:

The watch is attached to a gold key-chain and concealed in the pocket.  The chain is attached to the suspender or two chains are worn - from one hangs the watch, from the other the keys; the greater portion of the chains and their appendages are concealed in trouser pocket. 

The key chain became very popular with evening wear in the 1930s and remained so through the forties.

Fobs and key chains were more popular with full dress than tuxedos, likely because  the tailcoat's front exposed them best.  (1934 US ad)	Example of key chain worn with black tie.  From a 1932 Swank ad, one of the most popular makers of men's evening jewellery.	A rare illustration of a key chain being worn with a cummerbund.  From a 1935 US ad for dinner jacket linings.
Note how much finer this c1900 antique key chain is compared to watch chains.  (The square links are only 1mm by 1mm.)	The key chain vogue lasted right up until the early 1950s.  This 1948 illustration is from an Esquire pictorial on proper wedding attire.

In the early 1950s the pocket watch began to lose ground to the wristwatch which had been introduced to daywear after the First World War.  Amy Vanderbilt's 1952 Complete Book of Etiquette describes the former option and its accessories at the twilight of their popularity:

Wrist watches, unless of delicate design and without a leather strap, are less likely to be worn with evening clothes.  Instead, a thin watch, in gold or platinum, on a thin gold or platinum chain (or grandfather's good gold chain, which may be monumental but impressive) is worn. If any ill-advised woman should try to give a man a platinum chain with tiny diamonds between the links, he should return it to the jeweler who was talking into making it and go to Palm Beach on the proceeds or put them on the nearest fast horse.

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