Watches Are Rediscovered by the Cellphone Generation

Tyler Thoreson, the head of men’s editorial for Gilt Man, the flash sale Web site, often kept his forgettable watches stashed in a drawer.

And Eddy Chai, an owner of Odin New York, a downtown men’s boutique, gave up wearing watches regularly in his mid-20s, when he outgrew his Casio.

But after going watch-free for much of the last decade, the three men — all in their 30s and...