Putting Watch Designs to the Test

New York Times

07-04-2025

During the past seven days, about 50,000 visitors — industry representatives, members of the public, reporters and influencers — had been expected to walk the carpeted corridors of Watches and Wonders Geneva, considering new designs from the 60 luxury watch companies exhibiting there.
Talk has been of an industry battling to reinvigorate consumer confidence after the boom years that followed pandemic lockdowns came to an abrupt end 18 months ago. What do today's buyers want? And what are they prepared to pay?
Every brand thinks it has the answer. And as the watches introduced in recent days arrive in stores around the globe, those brands will soon find out whether they were right.
Designs on Time
What constitutes the right move for a brand is in the hands of its executives and creative minds, to say nothing of the engineers and the watchmakers who realize their plans. Then again, ultimately it is the buyers who really decide. Here are four very different watches, each designed to steal the limelight (and a chunk of some pay checks).
Patek Philippe Calatrava Pilot Travel Time Ref. 5524G
After the social media pile-on that followed the introduction of its Cubitus model this past fall, Patek has returned to another watch that caused a ruckus on release: the Pilot Travel Time version of its Calatrava design. When the vintage-looking, oversize watch with a second time zone function debuted in 2015, some observers called it a deviation for the watchmaker, but the debonair design did attract fans. This year, it has returned with a 42-millimeter white gold case, a lacquered ivory dial and a khaki-green composite fabric strap. Still in place is its clever solution to adjusting local time, activated by the buttons on the case's left flank. The action also adjusts the date and the local day/night indicator, without — Patek said — any impact on the watch's timekeeping precision.
$60,922
A. Lange & Söhne Odysseus Honeygold
When Lange introduced its Odysseus in 2019, luxury watchmakers were struggling to meet the demand for high-end sports watches with integrated metal bracelets. While the public's appetite for luxury watches has cooled, this category has proved to be resilient — in part because production is strictly limited, keeping supply levels low and prices high. Cue this 40.5-millimeter iteration, cast in Lange's patented Honeygold, a syrupy 18-karat gold that bridges the gap between yellow and pink golds. Lange, which does not release production numbers but is believed to make only about 5,500 watches a year, reserves the material for its most exclusive watches — and indeed, there will be just 100 of these. The company's Datomatic caliber, complete with oversize day and date displays, powers one of the most unapologetically indulgent watches of the 2025 show.
Price on application
Gerald Charles Maestro GC39 25th Anniversary Edition
A quarter of a century is a blink of an eye in watchmaking terms, which may be why the family-owned independent watchmaker Gerald Charles is only just coming into view. Behind the name is the story of Gerald Genta, the 20th-century's lodestar watch designer of pieces such as Audemars Piguet's Royal Oak (1972) and Patek Philippe's Nautilus (1976). In 2005, Mr. Genta created the Maestro, a montre à guichet, or window watch, with a novel case shape said to have been inspired by a Baroque monument in Rome (and labeled with Mr. Genta's own nickname). That GC39 design now has returned with a jumping-hour display (the hours jump from one to the next rather than moving slowly with the time) and a star-motif dial that the brand said was produced with a proprietary precision micro-chemical engraving technique. Only 100 are scheduled for production.
$42,300
Bremont Altitude MB Meteor
Arguably, the only watch event last year that could compete with the vociferous response to the introduction of Patek's Cubitus were changes at the British brand Bremont following a $59 million investment by Hellcat Acquisitions, a private equity group in New York City. So the 2024 Terra Nova has now been followed by the Altitude collection, a trio of watches inspired by aviation. Leading the line is this MB Meteor variant, named for the Martin-Baker company that makes ejector seats for fighter jets, and the Gloster Meteor jet used for Martin-Baker's first live ejection test in 1946. The 42-millimeter design is an update of Bremont's MB series, its most celebrated watch, and retains the three-tier Trip-Tick case and inner rotating bezel of earlier models, as well as the looped ejection pull handle look of the counterbalance on the seconds hand. A 39-millimeter version, which the brand calls an 'everyday pilot's watch,' and another at 42 millimeters featuring chronograph and second time zone functions complete the set.
$5,300
Less Is More
Since the advent of the smartwatch a decade ago (indeed, it was 2015 when Apple Watch entered the horological lexicon), mechanical watchmakers have been running for the hills — or at least to higher prices. But there are still brands making watches at more accessible prices for those life occasions when only a proper watch will do.
Nomos Glashütte Club Sport neomatik world time
The German independent watchmaker Nomos Glashütte is known for a number of things, among them that it runs a Berlin design studio alongside a traditional watch factory in the Ore Mountains of Saxony, and that its in-house mechanical watches offer excellent value. Here is another of those watches: a new world timer that beats much of the competition on function (via a single pusher), thickness (it is less than 10 millimeters), sportiness (it is water-resistant to 100 meters) and price. It is scheduled to be offered as two collection mainstays, including this silver dial version, and six limited editions.
$4,720
Frederique Constant Classic Perpetual Calendar Manufacture
The original king of the accessible mechanical watch is Frederique Constant, founded in 1988 by two executives put off by the high prices of Swiss watches. While they have since moved on, the company continues its admirable mission to bring mechanical watchmaking within (relative) reach. See this steel-case perpetual calendar model, a three-day automatic powered by the company's 34th caliber developed in-house — but still squeaking in at less than $10,000, a fraction of what most Swiss makers command for a mechanical watch with a calendar that keeps up with leap years.
$9,995
Norqain Wild ONE Skeleton 39MM Baby Blue
New watches, as well as new faces, at Norqain this year. Alongside a set of brightly colored, 39-millimeter versions of its Wild ONE skeleton — pinched down by three millimeters compared with the existing model — a new roster of ambassadors has joined the family-owned Swiss independent. The soccer legends Gianluigi Buffon of Italy and Gary Neville of England have become partners in the young business, as well as the faces of the campaign supporting the new watches.
$5,790
Breitling Top Time B31
Another of the big name players that has not yet made an entrance at Watches and Wonders Geneva, alongside Audemars Piguet and Omega, is Breitling. Nonetheless, the privately owned Swiss watch company has taken this season to announce a new time- and date-only version of its 1960s-inspired Top Time model, powered by a new Breitling-developed caliber with a 78-hour power reserve, and fronted by Austin Butler, the Oscar-nominated actor ('Elvis') and a new brand ambassador. Breitling has given the watch a universal 38-millimeter case size and said the model was designed, at least in part, to lure buyers alienated by recent industry price hikes.
$5,600
Caution to the Wind
Sobriety has its fans, but so does nonconformity. Even in these safety-first times, there are still plenty of colorful, experimental watches out there for those whose tastes extend beyond the conservative boundaries set by most luxury watchmakers. Here are four of them.
Ulysse Nardin Diver [AIR]
Ulysse Nardin has a new world-record claim: the world's lightest dive watch that also is water-resistant to 200 meters (656 feet). The Diver [AIR]'s titanium and carbon fiber case, hollowed-out titanium movement and elastic fabric strap are said to weigh a total of just 52 grams (1.8 ounces). And despite that feathery physique, the watch is said to be shock resistant to the equivalent of a five-meter drop.
$38,000
Ressence Type 7 Night Blue
Ressence's founder, the Belgian industrial designer Benoît Mintiens, is so obsessed with his concept of 'simplification' that he trademarked the word. Stripping a product back to reveal its essence is the idea, and it now has been applied to the new Type 7, Ressence's first tool watch, the industry term for functional, durable timepieces. Cast in titanium, the 41-millimeter case holds the ROCS7 system, which connects a mechanical movement to an arrangement of rotating discs that show the time (while floating in 2.95 milliliters of oil) via a series of micromagnets. The watch has a G.M.T. function (which shows two time zones simultaneously) and comes on an integrated titanium bracelet.
$42,500
Zenith G.F.J. Calibre 135
The initials G.F.J. are those of Georges Favre-Jacot, the 19th-century entrepreneur credited as the first to bring all of watchmaking's skills under one roof when he founded Zenith in 1865. For years, they have decorated the walls of Zenith's Swiss factory and now they also belong to a watch powered by Calibre 135, a reworking of a time-only movement produced by Zenith from 1949 to 1962 that it says won more awards for chronometric precision than any in watchmaking history. The new movement is accurate to plus or minus 2 seconds a day and sits under a lapis lazuli and blue mother-of-pearl dial, surrounded by a 39-millimeter platinum case.
$49,900
H. Moser & Cie Endeavour Centre Seconds Concept Purple Enamel
Purple? It seems watchmakers have been over the rainbow and back many times in recent years, looking for simple ways to energize existing designs and maybe even shock consumers into paying attention along the way. Moser's intensely purple version of its otherwise stubbornly restrained Endeavour Central Seconds takes that approach up another notch. The dial finish is achieved by engraving a white gold base so it takes on a hammered texture, then applying six layers of glassy enamel with the grand feu (great fire) technique. Because each layer is a different color, the end result is Moser's signature gradient, or fumé, finish.
$29,700