Men are pretty impoverished in the accessories stakes.
While women can re-invent an outfit countless times with imaginative handbag-necklace-earring combinations, the male wardrobe, for whatever complex anthropological reason, has not evolved into nearly as flexible an arsenal in the war we call fashion as its female counterpart has.
Sure, we've got shades, but what happens when there's no sun? There are a certain number of hit records you have to have made before you can get away with the sunglasses indoors look.
And hats? Hats were practically compulsory for men, until a bright spark sometime around 1963 realised that some heads just aren't made for head-ware.
I, for one, being burdened with one of those heads, am grateful for his insight.
Thank goodness for watches.
The right watch can complete a look, whether that look is business executive, rugged sportsman, or hip-hop mogul.
For that reason a watch is a great gift idea for the male of the species.
Plus, it's a gift he'll carry around with him all day; a constant reminder of your astounding generosity.
But selecting a watch as a gift is a daunting challenge.
The range of brands, styles and features can overwhelm.
But armed with a little knowledge you will able to find the right watch for the right man.
A watch says a lot about its wearer.
So the first thing to think about when buying a watch as a present is the style of your recipient, and also the situations where he might be donning your present.
Is he an athlete? If so, maybe a sporty chronograph watch like the TW Steel might be the ticket.
Chronograph simply means a watch that includes timekeeping and stopwatch functions and perhaps, other functions as well.
These are usually easy to read at a glance - no Roman numerals here - and often have a good heft to them.
Apart from the stopwatch, chronographs might have a tachymeter which measures speed and distance: useful for long-distance runners and as a gift for guys who like to impress people at parties by telling them their watch has a tachymeter.
A specialised diving watch might be right for deep-sea explorers.
These hardy watches come with deep water resistance (obviously) and often have luminous hands and indices for clarity underwater.
Many, such as Longines' Legend Diver, also feature a unidirectional rotating bezel, which is an impressive-sounding - and actually quite useful - safety device that reliably keeps track of dive times.
On the other end of the spectrum from these high-octane timepieces is the gift of a watch for formal occasions: smaller, more discreet, often with a plain leather strap and a simple, clean face; uncluttered with the bells and whistles of the sports watch.
Accurist and Skagen do a good line in this kind of elegance at the lower end of the market.
If you're looking to spend more you might look to brands like Omega and Breitling (if anyone out there is shopping for me, Omega De Ville Prestige might be a good choice!) He probably wouldn't want to run laps with this one, but it's a perfect watch gift if he goes to fancy dinner parties or likes pretending to be James Bond.
Between these extremes there are trendy designer watches of every shape and colour, restrained but chunky watches for the office, and vintage watches for the hipster in your life.
All of these watch types can be found for a range of prices.
A reasonable timepiece can be picked up for less than £100, but if money's no object, you can go on spending into the thousands, or even the tens of thousands on greater precision, more valuable materials and funkier functions to present the perfect gift of a watch to the lucky recipient.