Year after year, April finds the zeitgeist firmly in a Coachella chokehold. But beyond the deserts of Palm Springs, another pilgrimage runs just as hot: Watches and Wonders. At a week-long gathering in Geneva – the spiritual home of Swiss watchmaking – the watch world’s biggest names descend on the city to reveal their horological hitters for the year ahead.
Staging a spectacle in a Swiss convention center with a map spanning roughly nine football fields (!) 65 brands took to the expo this year – the largest since it began in 2021 – each with its own themed booth. It’s like attending a show at fashion week, except you’re stepping onto the runway itself and trying the clothes on for size.
For 2026, it felt like there was a clear manifesto: unadulterated maximalism. We’re talking total departure from the triteness of quiet luxury, one pair of Loro Piana slippers at a time. The malaise of minimalism has failed to intercept the world of watches this year. And we’re not mad about it. In fact, we’re screaming with high-octane frequency, just like the watches. Subtlety had a good run, but statement dressing (shouting) is in vogue once more. And we’re DIAL-ing you in (sorry not sorry) live and direct from the watchmaking capital, to reveal a line-up of standout pieces proving that restraint is officially off the clock.
Some Serious Shapeshifting
Things are getting a little weird – in the best way. Metamorphosis is having a moment, and no one plays with form quite like Cartier. The maison’s latest flex, the Myst de Cartier, leans all the way into illusion: part bracelet, part timepiece, all sleight of hand. Think sculptural geometry: beaded forms iced in diamonds and black lacquer, with a gem-setting that takes 112 hours to complete. The real pièce de résistance here is the secret elastic strap that separates each bead making it easy to fasten – sort of like those edible candy watches from back in the day.
Sure, Matthieu Blazy’s square-toed shoes might be dominating the group chat right now, but let’s give Chanel’s watches their due too, specifically the Chanel Coco Game long necklace. Tapping into gaming culture (a subtle callback to the SS17 “Data Center” runway, complete with those keyboard clutches), Coco Chanel is reimagined in pixelated form – chapeau and all – looped around the neck. Call it 8-bit couture: proof that even a 20th-century icon can render flawlessly in low-res. Dressed in her signature tweed suit, this monochrome pendant, set with 193 diamonds, flips to reveal an equally iced-out dial on the reverse.
Chopard also packs the full punch with a new cushion-shaped companion that joins the L’Heure du Diamant (three guesses on that translation) line-up. A bezel of some serious frosting frames the 18K white gold silhouette with 4.40 carats – but where myself and a chorus of other watch journos really went feral with excitement was for the diamond-set hands to record the time. Diamond hands are a rarity in modern watchmaking today, so it’s extra points to Chopard for bringing back the halcyon days of watch hands.
The boldest diversion in shape comes from Audemars Piguet, who made their first entry into Watches and Wonders this year, and thus had all eyes on them. And boy, did they deliver. Not another Royal Oak or an Offshore, but the Établisseurs Galets: a medley of pebble-like forms, sculpted into a watch bracelet in 18K yellow gold and natural stone. It comes as part of a new initiation from the brand, Atelier des Établisseurs, AP’s lab of seriously off-kilter pieces, produced in minimal quantities, and this model is one of three editions announced at the fair. But major kudos to AP here for shaping the movement – the engine that powers the watch – in the Galets to parallel the stones it takes inspiration from form, all assembled, adjusted, and cased by a single watchmaker from start to finish.
So Not Color Shy
Sometimes, it’s enough to change the color of the dial to really make some impact. We all know cerulean is more than just a shade of blue, after all. Rolex leaned into the color theory this year with a humble blue stone lacquer dial in the Oyster Perpetual 34. Housed in an Everose – that’s a pink-gold alloy Rolex whipped up themselves because of course the Coronet makes its own metals – a blue stone lacquer dial punches the wrist with plenty to say.
Meanwhile, Patek Philippe opts for one of the other primaries, fashioning their iconic travel watch, the World Time, in carmine red. Red might be a customary shade in fashion, but in watches, it’s a harder one to pull off. Why? Because it’s loud on the wrist, as opposed to a more neutral shade that feels akin to a second skin. But Patek is screaming loud and proud here for a collection that’s been growing since the 1930s.
In more tranquil tones, Vacheron Constantin returns to their Égérie Moon Phase collection, launched in 2020, that dabbles between the worlds of haute couture and haute horlogerie. This time around it’s a cherry blossom-inspired timekeeper, blending a pink mother-of-pearl dial with a handpainted calfskin-strap that uses the technique of miniature-painting.
Kings of the stone age, Piaget, have gone all Joseph and his technicolor dream coat on us with the Kaleidoscope Lights Watch. A medley of stones we bet you’ve never heard of (enchanté rhodochrosite) sits within a 41mm rose gold case, diverting Piaget’s classic Altiplano collection to new territory. From precious stones adorning the bezel, and fine stones including turquoise and jaspers on the dial, each mineral radiates a flying tourbillon – a tool that negates the effects of gravity thus keeping a watch in better time – in the right-corner. Suffice it to say, it really does the most.
Orbiting Excess
The fever of ‘more is more’ doesn’t always have to shout. In fact, in broad daylight, you might write off IWC Schaffhausen’s latest as relatively restrained. You’d be wrong. Enter ‘Ceralume,’ a proprietary ceramic innovation that allows the case, dial, and even the strap to emit a vivid blue glow. By day, it reads as a crisp, almost clinical white. But come nightfall, the photoluminescent pigments – behaving like a kind of light-storage battery – absorb energy from sunlight or artificial sources, then release it in a slow, electric radiance once the switch flips. It all falls under IWC’s space-age direction for 2026 – and fittingly so, because this isn’t just a watch lighting up a room, it’s something closer to an eclipse on the wrist.
Meanwhile, British watchmaker Bremont, is on a different celestial mission: to the Moon, literally. The Supernova Chronograph reveals a stamped pattern on the dial referencing the shape of satellite discs roaming above us in the ether. At 41mm with a black ceramic bezel, it’s scheduled to land on the lunar south pole sometime this summer on a rover with partnering company Astrolab.
The Mechanics of More
It might seem counterintuitive, but sometimes, removing parts of a watch is more complex. In watch parlance, we call it skeletonization, and there’s helpings aplenty for 2026’s watch novelties. For Hermès, the theme is dubbed ‘Mysterious Mechanisms’ forging a revamp of their iconic ticker, the H08 – this time in skeletonized form, or what they call en français: Squelette. “It was thought of as a metallic scaffolding structure that is both graphic and airy and recalls the architecture you can see in big cities,” shares Artistic Director Philippe Delhotal. A kind of horological storytelling, it's delivered in two variations: one punctuated with blue numerals and accents, the other in a more subdued grey.
In a similar vein, TAG Heuer set the precedent on what they do best: chronographs (a stopwatch on the wrist). Following their return to Formula 1, TAG Heuer have firmly established their legacy in the automotive world, but this year, it’s all about technicality. The Evergraph is a leap forward for the Monegasque icon, debuting a new movement (TH80-00 for those taking notes) that is a complete reimagining of what came before. That means replacing levers and springs with flexible components that move like a bendy business card through the movement without snapping. In reality, it means YAY for science and the feat of human engineering, but also a watch that will retain its precision and consistency over time.
Over the border of all things Swiss Made, the Italian patriot Panerai also ups the ante with maximalist intent with the Luminor 31 Giorni. Translated, that means 31 days of power reserve, which in watch terms is MAMMOTH – typically, the average watch is somewhere around 40-50 hours. “We are returning to what made the brand necessary in the first place: watches conceived as instruments, designed to be relied upon, with a form language that comes from function and not from decoration,” adds Product Director Alessandro Ficarelli. The onus is for watches to retain their true function: to assist us, as tools of our everyday lives.
Meanwhile, Bvlgari finally answers the prayer of its most cult-adored icons: the Bvlgari Octo Finissimo. First unveiled in 2014, its sharp octagonal design and extreme thinness – “Finissimo” literally meaning extremely fine – redefined the dress watch into something architectural and aggressively technical, scoring world records at just 1.7mm thick (that’s only 0.3mm more than a dime). This year, it returns in a thicker, yet more wearable 37mm case and in yellow gold, with a newly-designed movement in order to shrink its innards. Elsewhere, the Bvlgari Serpenti Aeterna evolves, now showcasing a mosaic of colored gemstones with a diamond-set dial/head.
Everyone Loves Frosting
And then there’s the kind of traditional maximalism we all know and love. The kind that Vogue’s Hafsa Lodi calls “dopamine dressing”: Maximalism for the sheer frivolity of it. Diamonds, gemstones, the whole lot. Enter Hublot, frolicking with absurdity in the Big Bang Tourbillon Impact High Jewelry One Million – a mouthful to say, but nowhere near the amount of notes you’d need to drop down to score this baby. (The clue’s in the name.) Frosting out the brand's posterboy watch, the Big Bang, a seismic crash arrives on the wrist in a marginal flurry of 500 natural diamonds cut in unconventional shapes across the case, bezel, dial, and buckle. To make matters even more complex for the Swiss provocateurs, they opted for a convex shape dial that draws the eye to a flying tourbillon. Miniature hands peek out from said central tourbillon – but the point here isn’t to read time. It’s to shout about it.
On the other hand, at Van Cleef & Arpels, time-keeping is shrouded in secrecy. Their iconic Ludo model, featuring a 1930s bracelet design that sits like a belt, is renowned for its concealed portrait of time, only to be released within a jewel-like clasp. This year, it cradles a lucky wrist with blue sapphires and yellow gold brick links that mesh together with extroverted confidence. Open up the ‘buckle’ and a mother-of-pearl dial decorates the wrist – and for the real zealots of detail, a solo baguette-cut sapphire sits at 12:00.
Perhaps the most unexpected contributor to the maximalist mood is the authority on elegant dress watches: Jaeger-LeCoultre. This year, we’re caught off-guard by the Reverso One Hibiscus Syriacus Bracelet, turning to Hawaii for inspiration. Referencing this through a pastoral scene of a hovering hummingbird supping nectar from blue hibiscus, it’s achieved through enamelling techniques that get fired up to 800 degrees Celsius, and 335 diamonds on the case alone. But there’s no point stopping there, right? Add another 384 to the bracelet and you’ll understand why this puts the heat in haute horology.
