During a gathering of the Wall Street Watch Club, which is a series of cocktail parties hosted by Dealmaker magazine, one of the timepieces on view was Blancpain’s new Carrousel Volant Une Minute. Self-winding and water resistant up to 100 meters, it retails for $180,300. While the average Casio — or mobile telephone, for that matter — can tell time as accurately as its high-end counterpart, wristwatches such as the Blancpain model remain the only discernible fashion statement for men.

Fashion statements, of course, are not to be confused with status symbols, including fast cars, wine cellars, and trophy wives. For the Ivy League MBA candidates who come to the club events to ogle what they hope to own someday, the expensive hardware is the draw: smart chronometers made of hundreds of parts fastidiously assembled by Swiss craftsmen.

At Club Macanudo, a cigar lounge on the Upper East Side, a popular game is to find the one man in the lounge not wearing one. Sure, bonuses on Wall Street won’t be as hefty as in years past, but they continue to fuel the market for such watches. This year, overly large and excessively jeweled watches are out. What’s in are slimmer, more conservatively styled watches reminiscent of decades past.

The Blancpain is one of many skeletal designs — so named because it display parts of a watch’s inner mechanics — that have become increasingly popular. So, too, have tool or sport watches, often cast in stainless steel and designed for particular functions such as diving and sailing. The rugged-looking Panerai has set the pace in the sport watch category for the last few years. Also leading the way is the series of bold tool watches designed by Bell & Ross, founded in 1992 by aviation engineers; the pieces resemble instruments in an airplane’s cockpit.

Breitling, a luxury sport watch brand with a loyal pilot following, began a marketing relationship with Bentley Motorcars during the luxury marque’s quest to reclaim a title at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, a sports car endurance race held annually in France (the company did indeed recover its designation in 2003). This year’s Bentley Mulliner Tourbillon, a bespoke Breitling watch for which the customer can choose certain finishes, is a tribute to the Mulliner department, Bentley’s custom car-building division.

Still another style gaining in recognition is the multifunctional model best represented this season by the Breguet Classique Grande Complication, which retails for $284,500. It presents the age and phase of the moon, the day, the month, and leap year within the 12-hour, 18-karat gold dial.

In the 1990s, mechanical, that is, non-battery, watches began their big comeback. The major watchmakers wasted no time in making the majority of them self-winding models, according to Steve Kivel, whose family has operated Central Watch in Grand Central Terminal since 1952.

The Piaget, Lange & Söhne, and Vacheron Constantin brands (Richemont Group) and lines such as Jaquet Droz and Glashütte Original (Swatch Group) have also offered their takes on the mechanical, skeletal, and tool watch themes.

Another trend among watch enthusiasts is looking to the secondary market for vintage models. A stainless steel Rolex Daytona that originally sold at retail for $500 in the 1970s, sold at auction for $505,000 in April. “These were the cheapest watches that Rolex made at the time,” a vice president in the watch department at Sotheby’s, Aaron Rich, said.

But if there’s an undisputed top-of-the-line name among collectors, it’s Patek Philippe. “It’s the king of the market and always will be,” Mr. Rich said.

jakasie@nysun.com