Sports watch with a suit - ok or mistake?

[snowbird]

In the US my observation is that wearing sports watches with suits is very common, at least in recent years - I see a lot more of those than the traditional gold watch on a leather strap. However I've seen several comments from members in other countries that indicate there may be cultural differences in this.

Case in point: I was in a meeting recently, everyone wearing suits, all Canadian or US people except for one guy from the UK. Everyone had on some kind of steel or steel/gold watch on a metal bracelet (Rolex, Breitling, etc.) except the guy from the UK had on a gold watch on a leather strap.

What do you think?

I'm seting up a poll now that tries to sort this out by geography (as best I can with the max of 10 response options on the poll function).