The Southpaw’s Timepiece – A guide to the Best Left-Handed Watches

Left-handed folk, I hear you. Your daily life is a constant stream of comedy errors. You’re navigating a world designed for the right-handed overlords; it’s not easy. You left-handers have to fend for yourselves. You are masters of the ink smear. Strugglers of the can openers that operate the wrong way! And that’s not even counting the hours of awkward scissor-wielding. But now you get to take back some control, with a market that at least caters to left-handed wristwatch wearers – the LHD (left-hand drive) watch.

For years, you have been forced to navigate crowns and chronograph pushers that look awkward and uncomfortable, often causing you to contort your wrist whilst making a simple time adjustment, and making timekeeping a rather cumbersome and clumsy affair. But now, the time has come to reclaim wrist style with several super beautiful left-handed watches available from some of the most revered brands in the industry. Luxury watch manufacturers are finally appreciating the struggle that a lefty experiences when shopping for a comfortable daily beater. And this shift is driven by a combination of factors…

Why are Manufacturers Making More watches for Left-Handed Wearers?

Right-handed watch wearers make up around 90% of the market; there’s no getting away from that fact. But while left-handed watch collectors are the minority, it doesn’t make them any less inclined to seek out something stylish and ultra-sophisticated for their wrist. Everyone deserves a watch that perfectly balances functionality and style with comfort. As the watch market becomes more competitive, so does the desire to create timepieces for the less common consumer-driven corners of the watch world – the lefties. Brands are recognising an opportunity to serve this underserved demographic, thus a surge in destro watches has become inevitable. 

First, let’s begin with a basic introduction to left-hand drives (LHD). Then, we’ll look at reasons why they have grown in popularity. The destro watch is a timepiece with the crown and any other additional buttons located on the left-hand side of the case, rather than the right. The idea is that if you’re a left-handed person, you are more likely to wear your watch on your right wrist, just as a right-handed person would wear their desired timepiece on their less dominant hand. 

A left-handed watch is essential for lefties because the traditional crown location on the 3 o’clock side becomes impossible to adjust. Accessing the chronograph pushers is just as difficult. Technically, you’d have to twist your dominant hand across the opposite side of the case on your right wrist to access the pushers and crown. By placing the crown and any additional buttons or pushers on the left side of the case (9 o’clock), a lefty can wear their watch on the right wrist and have easy access to the crown with their dominant hand.

Apart from improving ergonomics, left-handed watches prove useful for professional use, too. Panerai is a perfect example of a luxury watch brand that began creating watches with right-handed crowns during the 1960s for functional purposes, supplying these watches to the Italian Royal Navy. Panerai acknowledged the need for frogmen to wear additional equipment on their left arm, thus making watches with right-sided crowns easier to operate and hassle-free to use in critical environments. 

Beyond practicality, left-handed watches have become a niche collectible. Not every collector needs one, yet dedicated models crafted by industry greats such as Rolex, Panerai, and Tudor have further propelled the popularity of the LHD further, proving to be quirky additions to any enthusiast’s collection.  So, without further ado, let’s look at the left-handed watches we’ve lined up for you in this guide.

Meistersinger Bell Hora Petrol Left Hand 

The Meistersinger Bell Hora Petrol Left Hand is an incredibly unique and intriguing timepiece. Meistersinger watches in general are an excellent example of a philosophy close to the brand’s heart – the slowing down of time. Meistersinger watches, with their single-hand design, encourage the wearer to focus less on the smaller details of timekeeping and more on appreciating the present. But the “Sonnerie au Passage” Complication that Meistersinger tastefully blends into this timepiece brings an audible element to timekeeping, chiming a single pleasant note on the hour, every hour. Don’t worry, though, you can put the watch on silent mode should you wish, by activating the 8 o’clock pusher.

Secondly, the Meistersinger Bell Hora Petrol is a beautifully crafted left-hand piece, with the crown positioned at 9 o’clock on the model’s broad 43mm stainless steel case. Thirdly, the shade of the dial is extraordinary. Petrol blue tones boast a distinctive spiral pattern, contrasting against the white Arabic numerals of the hour track and, of course, the singular hand. The watch also features a 24-hour scale on one of the inner concentric circles, while a light brown leather strap gives this uniquely engineered left-hand watch a classic yet relaxed sensibility.

Hamilton Khaki Aviation X-Wind Auto Chrono

High-quality left-handed watches are not exactly in abundance on the market, and if you want a chronograph, your search only gets harder. The Hamilton Khaki Aviation X-Wind Auto Chrono, however, is a complication watch with a fierce aesthetic and a quality build. It’s also one of the more affordable options out there, with a price tag just shy of $2k.

As its name would suggest, its design is geared towards pilots with several X-Wind features to appreciate, including the first-ever drift angle calculator to help a pilot successfully calculate how crosswinds may affect their journey. In addition to that, this Khaki Aviation watch boasts a technical look, suiting urban aviators down to the ground. Its large 44mm stainless steel case is sure to command attention on the wrist, and with its bold black and white Arabic numeral dial and syringe-style hands, there’s no mistaking its aviation tool aesthetic. Hamilton pairs this watch with a brown cow leather strap and steel H-Buckle fastening, and equips it with a movement that delivers a 60-hour power reserve, allowing you to easily switch it out for another watch for a couple of days.

Zodiac Super Sea Wolf Pro-Diver GMT Automatic Rubber Strap Watch

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Naturally, when we think of Zodiac watches, our minds instantly transport us to the vintage-inspired divers that the brand has experienced so much success with. But that doesn’t mean Zodiac can’t be recognised for creating more slick, dark, contemporary creations, too. The Zodiac Super Sea Wolf Pro-Diver GMT is a black-coated diver with a left-hand crown at 9 o’clock, suggesting its use and versatility on the wrist of a left-handed diver. Blacked out from top to bottom, this Zodiac LHD watch is crafted from black DLC-coated stainless steel, which gives it a muscular, stealthy build, along with super bright lume accents that enhance optical performance. To assist the hefty 42mm model’s 300M water-resistant rating, Zodiac equips this dive watch with a helium escape valve at 2 o’clock.

This ISO-rated dive watch from Zodiac’s Super Sea Wolf range combines superior water resistance with a GMT function. It means you can get a last cheeky swim in at the beach before heading to the departure lounge for a swift cocktail and still look cool. The left-handed crown is screw-locked to ensure the case stays watertight, while the 2 o’clock HEV gives the watch an asymmetrical funkiness. Meanwhile, the orange-coated GMT hand and 12 o’clock luminous pip on the bezel are undeniably sporty, as is the automatic dive watch’s black rubber strap.

Sinn EZM 3 Left Hand

Sinn describes the EZM 3 as “the mission timer with magnetic field protection”. Indeed, diving with this mechanical watch certainly reassures you of Sinn’s top-tier technology, including its Ar-Dehumidifying Technology that absorbs humidity, which can otherwise diffuse into the watch. Also, it has double O-rings on the screwable crown at 9 o’clock, perfectly placed for the left-handed watch wearer, and permitting dives of up to 500 meters in depth. Sinn has always been respected for its robust case constructions, and this model is no exception to the rule. It features a bead-blasted stainless steel build with a magnetic resistance of 80,000 A/m.

Meeting the requirements of DIN 8310, the Sinn EZM 3 has a diver’s bezel with minute ratcheting, temperature resistance technology that keeps the watch functional between temperatures of -45°C up to +80°C, and a mission timer design on the matte black dial. In addition to all this, it features white luminous markers and hands for optimal readability in low-light conditions.

DOXA SUB 300T Aristera

All left-hand watch collectors should make way for a watch like the DOXA SUB300T Aristera in their collection. This watch keeps all the cool features of the DOXA dive watch, including the iconic orange dial, and changes nothing apart from the crown, which now sits on the left side of the case. This is important to note about this design because the vast majority of lefties don’t want any extra special treatment; they want a taste of what the right-handed crowd gets to enjoy on a daily basis – a comfortable, functional timekeeping tool.

This DOXA 300T Aristera is a wearable 42,5mm cushion-shaped model made from stainless steel, with an aluminium insert on the bezel that bears permitted dive time according to depth, indicated by feet or metres, and taken directly from the same scale used by the US Navy. All of the dive-related features on the orange dial of this left-handed DOXA watch are coated with Super-LumiNova, ensuring excellent legibility. This 1200M water-resistant watch is completed on one of the brand’s distinctive beads-of-rice bracelets, while the back of the watch is engraved with a cool image of a sailing vessel.

Mühle Glashütte S.A.R. Flieger-Chronograph

The birth of this special pilot’s watch by Muhle Glashutte stems back to a time when the German Navy needed a chronograph that could calculate flight speeds. In came Muhle Glashutte with its S.A.R. Flieger-Chronograph that could withstand some of the most challenging operational conditions. Today, that pilot’s watch has evolved substantially to accommodate a community of left-handed watch wearers.

The Muhle Glashutte S.A.R Fliger-Chronograph features the screw-down crown at 9 o’clock on a 45mm stainless steel case, flanked by two chronograph push-pieces trimmed in a sporty orange colour. These control the 30-minute, 12-hour, and central chrono seconds features, all decorated with matching orange accents. What’s interesting about Muhle Glashutte watches is that although the brand uses Sellita-based movements, it modifies them, equipping them with components like the Woodpecker neck regulation, which ensures precise and reliable timekeeping, and its own three-quarter plate. The watch also features a date window in the unusual location of 8 o’clock, constituting what is an overall intriguing pilot’s watch from the revered German brand.

TUDOR Pelagos LHD

This left-hand drive from TUDOR made waves when it first launched back in 2016 and has been a mainstay ever since. Catering to the world of lefties, it features a crown situated at 9 o’clock, which nods to an important chapter of the brand’s history. During the 1970s, the French Navy commissioned left-handed diver watches with a core focus on bringing superior functionality to the wrists of those with a dominant left hand. Now, much more performance-focused and with improved materials and technology, the modern Pelagos LHD is powered by the Calibre MT5612-LHD, which offers a 70-hour power reserve.

The Pelagos LHD is somewhat of a cult classic. It features a matte-black case and bezel with Super-LumiNova-coated hour markers and Snowflake hands that look aged. The patina of the luminous paint is what gives this Pelagos its undeniable neo-vintage aesthetics – a signature look for the brand’s iconic Black Bay series, too.

TAG Heuer Monaco

The Monaco watch by TAG Heuer has always been a lefty’s watch, though annoyingly, some of the more modern references have had their crowns moved over to the right-hand side. That said, there are still plenty of options within the Monaco range for the left-handed wearer, including this stunning reference dressed in the iconic Monaco blue hue. The watch retains the left-handed crown at 9 o’clock and features the bicompax arrangement of two chronograph counters on the left and right axes of the dial, both of which echo the familiar “squircle” shape.

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This 39mm steel model boasts the horizontal hour markers and dashes of sporty red throughout the design. Cementing the collection’s sporty style, the watch features a black calfskin leather strap adorned with a special asphalt racetrack textured surface. The strap secures to the wrist with a polished and brushed steel buckle engraved with the TAG Heuer shield logo. This Monaco watch is powered by the Calibre 11, which provides a 40-hour power reserve.

For left-handed watch collectors, it doesn’t get better than the Monaco – a watch that became an icon for its left-handed design and one that was stylized on the wrist of a true legendary leftie himself, Steve McQueen.

Panerai Luminor Destro Otto Giorni

Last but not least, an LHD watch from Italian manufacturer, Panerai. Yes, the innovator of some of the most distinctive dive watches of all time even offers a Luminor with a left-sided crown, which makes it one of the most diverse dive watch innovators on the market. The Luminor Destro Otto Giorni is a 44mm behemoth, with plenty of wrist presence and a robust stainless steel construction promising a water-resistant rating of 300 meters. The brand’s history in creating left-handed watches stretches right back to the 1960s, when Italian Navy frogmen needed to wear watches on their right wrists.

This pure, left-handed conversion of the popular Luminor watch features a sapphire crystal glass front, an in-house movement with an impressive 8-day power reserve, and a small seconds sub-counter placed in the unusual location of 3 o’clock. It makes this watch stand out as an instantly identifiable left-hand watch amongst Paneristi. What’s more, the watch keeps perfect balance in its usual way, featuring a stylish beige suede strap to complete its vintage-inspired aesthetic. Meanwhile, the tones of the luminous sandwich dial have been kept the same, also. These tan tones match the strap perfectly, further enhancing the key features of the famous cushion-shaped dive watch.  

Conclusion

As you’ll know, by reaching the end of this guide, left-hand watches are not a gimmick but a testament to the industry’s ability to cater to the needs of left-handed wearers. They are no longer an oddity, nor a niche. They sit in a category of their own, often demonstrating some of the best examples of technical horological innovation.

There are tangible ergonomic benefits to wearing an LHD if you’re a left-handed person. With a design that eradicates the crown digging into the wrist, adjusting the time is simple with a left-crown watch design. Legendary brands like Rolex, Panerai, and TUDOR have recognised the demand for these southpaw timepieces, leading by example and inspiring others to do the same. Whether you’re left-handed or enjoy the distinctive design of a destro watch, you’ll have no problem finding a watch that brings both practicality and style to your wrist with any of these best left-hand watch options.