Steve Martin wears a Piaget Polo 8273

Everything you need to know about the class divide in Planes, Trains and Automobiles is on the wrist. Steve Martin's Neal Page, an uptight Manhattan advertising executive, wears a Piaget Polo in gold. John Candy's Del Griffith wears whatever a shower curtain ring salesman from Wichita would wear. John Hughes understood costume shorthand, and the Piaget does more character work in one shot than a page of dialogue.

The Polo was designed by Yves Piaget in 1979 as a luxury sports watch for people who didn't actually play sports. It's thin, gold, and has the distinctive vertical gadroon pattern running from the dial onto the bracelet. In the mid-1980s it was the watch for finance guys and ad executives, exactly the kind of man Neal Page is. Hughes uses it as a plot device too: at one point, Page tries to trade the Piaget to a motel clerk for a room, and the clerk isn't interested. His entire world of Manhattan status symbols means nothing on a frozen highway in Kansas.