Checking the time during a meeting has always been considered a faux pas. Whether it’s the casual eye dart to an upturned phone on the table over coffee, or subtly refreshing your screen as another spreadsheet is rolled out, the act has always, rightly, been considered a rather rude giveaway that you would rather be somewhere else.
It’s not a new problem. In the nineteenth and early twentieth century, there wasn’t considered to be any need for women to see the time at all, and while wristwatches for men overtook pocket watches in popularity, women were left floundering at endlessly dull cocktail parties. Until the 1920s, that is, when a host of high jewellery brands began to secret watch dials into opulent bracelets, hiding minute dials under lids of precious stones. Dials could be viewed with a subtle flick of a gold cover, or squinted at through lattices of emeralds and rubies.
