Every November in Geneva, the watch industry hands out its own Oscars, the GPHG. Most men read the list of winners as a shopping guide. That is a mistake. The GPHG doesn't tell you what people buy. It tells you where the industry is heading, and a man who reads it well sees the shift before everyone else. This year the message was unmistakable. The big steel sports watch with an integrated bracelet, the watch every second man wore to prove he had arrived, won little. The prizes went to dress watches, to complications, to hand-finished movements and to a 36.5 mm three-hander from Chopard. The AP Royal Oak that won the Iconic prize is nicknamed "Jumbo", and it measures 39 mm. Think about that. For a decade, 42 and 44 mm were sold as masculine. Now 39 mm is a jumbo again. The steel rush is over, and taste is back. And gents with slimmer wrists can rejoice. There is a lesson here that goes beyond watches. Size was never strength. A watch that dominates the wrist is compensating for something. A watch in proportion, well made and quietly finished, says the opposite: that you don't need to shout. The man who wears it knows what he is looking at, and so does anyone else who knows. The biggest winner of the night was not a brand but a family. The Scheufeles took four of the twenty prizes with Chopard and Ferdinand Berthoud: a sober dress watch, a tourbillon, a hand-made chronometer and a piece of high jewellery. They have no weak point and no contradiction, and every piece does its job. That is how a reputation is built, whether it is a brand's or a man's: coherence over time, not noise in the moment. One more thing. The GPHG reflects a consensus, the shared judgement of the people who make, sell and write about watches. Consensus tends to come true, and that is useful to know. But it rarely sees the outsider coming. Read it, understand it, and then make your own call. Following the crowd early is still following the crowd. The GPHG does not measure what men buy. It announces what they will be offered. The smart move is to be there already.

I'm back and I'm thinking of buying LONGINES

I HAVE PURCHASED SO MANY WATCHES and then returned them IT'S NOT HEALTHY. Tell me your story in the comments.

Saw this question somewhere and it stuck with me. If you had to sell everything else and keep just one watch for the rest of your life, which one would it be — and why that one? For me it would be a tough call between a solid everyday diver and the chronograph that started it all. Curious what everyone here would pick.

Who has one and what do you think? I'm currently having to talk myself out of ordering this one...