Gold watches from Van Cleef & Arpels, Cartier, Chanel, Bulgari, Piaget and others stole the spotlight at Watches and Wonders 2025 in Geneva, with sculptural pieces among the striking launches
Blame the
mob wife trend , or perhaps the shift from minimalism towards ''boom boom'' fashion – coined earlier this year by trend forecaster Sean Monahan to refer to the bold and bougie fashion we're seeing make a comeback. Either way, gold watches are back. Not that a gold watch – a perennial symbol of those who've truly made it – has ever completely lost its appeal.
It's just that at
this year's Watches and Wonders – the annual gathering of the horology industry in Geneva, held this year in the first week of April – gold watches were not only spied everywhere, but made serious impact.
Amid the slew of glittering timepieces – from the new trapeze-shaped Piaget Sixtie to a pink gold take on Patek Philippe's much discussed new Cubitus and Rolex's 1908 with its 18k gold Settimo bracelet – the most striking launches this year were sculptural takes on time telling.
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Van Cleef & Arpels Cadenas watch in yellow gold and white gold with sapphires and diamonds. Photo: Handout
Take the Van Cleef & Arpels Cadenas. The avant-garde 'secret watch' design, with the dial sloping at an angle, takes its inspiration from a padlock (cadenas is French for 'padlock') and first debuted in 1935. A new iteration in yellow gold and festooned with diamonds and radiant sapphires proves that a strong design can go through many permutations without losing its essence or appeal. Indeed it looks as modern as ever.
The same could be said of Bulgari's new take on its emblematic motif, the serpent – an eternal symbol of renewal and rebirth. The Serpenti Aeterna forgoes the flexible tubogas bracelet that it has become synonymous with, for a strong, architectural bangle. It represents a new chapter for the serpent in a particularly auspicious year in the Chinese calendar.
The animal kingdom is never far from the minds of Cartier designers, most especially the French maison's most treasured pet –
the panther . After all, the panther first appeared on a Cartier watch in 1914 with diamond and onyx detail recalling the fur of the big cat. It was the legendary Cartier designer Jeanne Toussaint, who guided the brand's artistic expression from 1933 to 1970, who rendered the panther in three-dimensional forms. Her love of volume and contrasting colour can be felt too in the new bangle-style Panthère jewellery watches. In a 'toi et moi' style, the sculptural panther appears to guard the dial and blurs the line between watch and jewel. Certainly the muscular body of the ferocious panther, sculpted in yellow gold with tsavorite eyes and a black lacquer dial, gives its wearer the aura of someone not to be trifled with.
Cartier Panthère jewellery watch in yellow gold with diamonds, tsavorites, onyx and black lacquer. Photo: Handout
A sense of volume and contrast can also be found in the new Cartier Tressage watch. The timepiece, with its twists of round golden beads – one model threaded through with diamonds – flanking the dial is another ode to Jeanne Toussaint and her exceptional taste.
Marie-Laure Cérède, creative director of watches and jewellery, says the Tressage represents a new dimension in watchmaking.
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