Stacking watches is officially celeb-approved: from Kylie Jenner’s duelling Cartier Panthère and Baignoire, to Serena Williams doubling up on the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak

As Brynn Wallner, founder of the influential Instagram account dedicated to women’s watches, Dimepiece, noted of the way the loyal brand ambassador wore different pieces throughout the night: “We appreciate her integrating the watches into each of the costume changes … No one is as committed to the watch glam as she is!!!! Well, maybe @michelle.yeoh … but Serena’s multiple watches in one night tips it over the edge.”

Williams isn’t the only high-profile double watch wearer. The original watch stacker was, in fact, Cuban revolutionary Fidel Castro, who wore his Rolex Submariner with another watch worn facing inward at several key historical moments.

Meanwhile, in a recent Instagram story, Kylie Jenner piled on two “It” girl watches: the gold Cartier Panthère and the now-cult Cartier Baignoire. The latter, which practically broke the internet when it was released at Watches and Wonders 2023, is a true jewellery-timepiece hybrid with its slim gold bangle – which fits with the way people are thinking about watches as an accessory to stack.

Kate Lacey, a London-based vintage watch expert and dealer, and owner of The Shrew Shop – which specialises in vintage Cartier timepieces – notes that double watch wearing works as an extension of the irreverent trend towards stacking watches with jewellery.

“I’d say there are a few reasons [that] brought about this trend. There is definitely more enthusiasm for smaller-sized watches – but I think in part people are still transitioning from wearing larger watches over to small, and so they stack them a bit to bulk them up,” she says.

“There certainly is a trend for mixing timepieces with jewellery, a certain irreverence towards watches that has become in vogue – the ‘dress watch’ has almost become a thing of the past,” she adds. “You’re more likely these days to see people walking around wearing a rare Patek or special dial Cartier dressed down with a faded pair of jeans and T-shirt and a stack of bracelets, than you are to see someone wearing a stand-alone rare watch.”

There are other reasons why people might choose to wear two watches, including one on each wrist. For Nicholas Biebuyck, heritage director at Tag Heuer, there’s a practical reason for doing so, especially when in work mode.

“For me, it’s about showing that the past inspires the future,” he says. “The times you have seen me wearing two watches, I would have normally been wearing a new release and the original watch that inspired it, such as the new Glassbox Reverse Panda and the 2447NST, or the original black Monaco 74033N and the pieces that have inspired it.

Jean Arnault, watch director at Louis Vuitton and a well-documented timepiece enthusiast, was recently spotted front row at the Louis Vuitton menswear show in Paris wearing a watch on each wrist. It’s a look that you might also – if you’ll pardon the pun – clock at major watch events, with aficionados wearing as much of their collection as possible. Still other types? The collector who might wear an Apple Watch (you don’t want to lose that streak!) on one wrist and a cherished mechanical timepiece on the other.

Perhaps what this is all really saying, is that when it comes to watches – just as with fashion and expressions of personal style – there are no hard-and-fast rules.

“My favourite stackers [on Instagram] are Mr A, Old Watch Lady and Lori Hirshleifer,” says Lacey. “They mix colour and texture all the time; it doesn’t matter about the brand – it’s just whatever they love. I mean of course they wear fabulous collectable pieces, but it’s more a style statement than anything else. They mix high and low end, which is why it’s so appealing! Anything goes.”