Are you a boardroom bohemian or a man of bleisure? What your bracelet says about you.

A man’s hands are a portal to his personality. You don’t have to be a palm reader to gauge a fair amount of information from the roughness of the skin, the state of the nails, the strength of the handshake. Rings can tell you whether or not someone is married (wedding band), from a well-to-do family (signet), or seriously into Death Metal (skull ring). Likewise, a watch is a social signifier – there’s a clear distinction between a man who wears a Swiss-made mechanical watch and someone who wears a chunky GPS watch.

What your choice of bracelet says, however, is often more nuanced. Sure, it might scream: “I snorkelled through raw sewage at Glastonbury”. Or, poking out of a shirt cuff, it can shout: “What, this old thing? Picked it up at a street market in Kathmandu.”

“It is tempting to think men only started wearing bracelets in 2012 when the street-style movement took off along with the explosion of Instagram,” says MP PORTER’s Jewellery and Accessories Buyer Mr Simon Spiteri. “But look at classic pictures of Paul Newman, James Dean or Elvis and they’re often wearing a simple, silver identity bracelet. In Italy, men of all ages have been wearing colourful woven leather bracelets from Tod’s for years.”

Bracelets often come to the fore(arm) in warmer months. “The less you wear, the more impact an accessory like a bracelet can have,” says Mr Spiteri. So if people are going to judge a book (you) by its cover (what you’re wearing), make sure you’re giving off the correct hand signals (OK, you get the idea).

Picture, if you will, a fern leaf-foamed latte, shot from above on a bleached wood table next to a stack of Kinfolk and Cereal magazines, a pair of tortoiseshell glasses placed just so, all lit by a solitary pendant bulb. There’s a fixed-wheel bike leaning against an exposed brick wall in an otherwise spartan apartment. This immaculate curation is quite easy to envisage because there is a dozen such images on your Instagram feed right now; 2016 is the year of maximal minimalism. The aesthete living this particular ideal prizes simple, pared back, less-is-more design. If he is going to wear a bracelet at all, it will just be the one, most likely an understated silver identity bracelet or a brushed metal cuff from Le Gramme or Maison Margiela. Any other accessories such as a watch will also fit with this clean look. And he knows as a general rule, metals should match. Silver is less ostentatious and easier to pair than rose or yellow gold, since it also sits pretty alongside stainless steel and white gold.

Surely we have reached peak festival. Who goes to them anyway? Well, this guy is having a good crack by turning it into a summer endurance sport. And look, he’s even forgotten to cut off last weekend’s VIP wristband. You can often tell what kind of music someone is into from their bracelet – grungy black leather and Alexander McQueen’s trademark skulls denote heavy rock; beads suggest something more rootsy or acoustic; while neon Day-Glo are strictly for dance music. There is a sweet spot when it comes to bandwidth – any more than three bracelets on one wrist is too many: people may start to assume that you ain’t getting on no plane, sucka. And if you’re no longer at the festival but back at work, please shampoo the pungent wristband – no whiffs, no buts.

A self-employed nomad for whom there is little distinction between business and pleasure (“bleisure”) – he’s as likely to conduct his affairs on the back of a boat in the Med as he is at the office in the city and sports the perma-tan to prove it. His handshake is commanding; his taste is elegant, classic, masculine, understated. Think woven leather bracelets from Bottega Veneta, Tod’s or Tom Ford on one wrist; an IWC Portuguese on the other. Together these accessories convey a consistent message of expensive reassurance whether worn formally with a suit or casually with a linen shirt and chino shorts.

There’s one in every office. He works a nine to five but lives for the five to nine: from 5.00pm Friday to 9.00am Monday, that is. This young buck packs as much as he can into every minute of free time and into his carry-on suitcase. His annual leave is sliced thinly in half-day increments so that he never actually takes a full week off but somehow manages to hop on a budget flight somewhere different every weekend throughout a never-ending summer, bookended by the opening and closing parties in Ibiza. Physically, he’s back at his desk on Monday, but his brain is elsewhere until Tuesday afternoon. His voice returns on Wednesday. His arms betray the sunburn and smudged ink stamps of someone who enjoys a day club – which offsets his bright and poppy summery shirt with co-ordinating and accessibly priced Miansai bracelet and a Braun watch.

The sartorial straightjacketing of a jacket and tie often elicits a little dress code rebellion from those who wish to distinguish themselves from the corporate drones. But colourful socks and suit linings will only take you so far. We live in a world where exotic travel is the new currency of success. Have you noticed how the question “Where are you going next?” has become a game of one-upmanship? So the man who shoots his cuff to reveal a string of tasteful beads from Isaia or Luis Morais and/or a silver bracelet with a Navajo motif from Peyote Bird suddenly has the upper hand. The visual effect is meant to look like a mix of high and low – like he casually picked these pieces up while travelling; or was given them as keepsakes, friendship bracelets woven with meaning and memories. But it actually costs rather a lot to look this boho.