Tariff talk may have thrown a wrench into the festivities at the 2025 edition of Watches and Wonders—the high-end watch industry’s annual debutante ball, which this year took place April 1-7 at the Palexpo convention center in Geneva—but it didn’t extinguish the excitement over the season’s most talked-about watch introductions.
From a minimalist perpetual calendar to a classic sport watch with a rich burgundy dial, five wristwatches stood out not only for their stellar executions but also because they perfectly embodied the prevailing trends. Without further ado, we present the quintet of timepieces that caught our eye at Watches and Wonders:
Parmigiani Fleurier Toric Perpetual Calendar
Toric Perpetual Calendar in 42.5 mm platinum case with “Morning Blue” dial, $99,400;
Parmigiani Fleurier
When watchmakers talk about “complications,” they’re referring to functions on a watch that do more than simply tell the time, such as chronographs, which are used to measure increments of time, and minute repeaters, which use chimes to indicate the passage of time. Among watchmakers, however, the king of all complications is, without question, the perpetual calendar, which accurately tracks the day, date, and month, even for leap years.
While 2024 was the de facto year of the tourbillon, a showy but antiquated mechanism designed to counteract the effects of gravity on a pocket watch, 2025 is shaping up to be the year of the perpetual calendar, if the abundance of new versions from brands such as Audemars Piguet, A. Lange & Söhne and IWC, is any indication.
Often, the complication comes with a rather busy display that includes numerous subdials to accommodate the various time-telling details. What makes the new Toric Perpetual Calendar from the boutique maker Parmigiani Fleurier so appealing is its minimalist design. The piece features just two subdials and comes in a choice of two elegant executions: a platinum edition with a pastel Morning Blue dial, and an 18k rose gold edition with a peach-hued Golden Hour dial, each a limited edition of just 50 pieces.
Tudor Black Bay 58
Black Bay 58 in 39 mm steel case with burgundy dial, $4,600; Tudor
The novelist and watch lover Gary Shtyengart covered Watches and Wonders for Bloomberg and cited the new Black Bay 58 from Tudor, Rolex’s sibling brand, as one of the brand’s most pleasing introductions. “It is hard to describe the watch without leaning into its color; it is the most burgundy thing on the planet,” he wrote. Indeed, the 39 mm steel model—which comes on a stainless steel 5-link bracelet, a stainless steel 3-link “rivet-style” bracelet or a rubber strap—features a bright red dial paired with a unidirectional rotatable bezel in stainless steel with a matching burgundy anodized aluminum insert.
The red-on-red combo was one example of a general appreciation for the fiery hue evident across the fair. We saw racing red watches at TAG Heuer, whose 2025 collection was almost wholly devoted to its new sponsorship of Formula 1; crimson-hued evening watches at Chopard and Rolex; and shades of burgundy at Hermès and Nomos. The color, which has been popping up in interior design and in jewelry, where red gems such as ruby, garnet and carnelian are gaining traction, began to draw attention earlier this year on the fashion runways, where insiders have declared cherry red a “power move.” No doubt the Swiss would agree.
Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso Tribute Monoface Small Seconds
Top and above: Reverso Tribute Monoface Small Seconds in 18k pink gold on Milanese mesh bracelet, $41,300; Jaeger-LeCoultre
Born in 1931 in a fantastic swiveling case initially designed for polo players who wanted their watches to withstand the rigors of the game, the Reverso has since become Jaeger-LeCoultre’s defining timepiece. That helps explain why the brand revisited the model this year in scores of fetching iterations, the loveliest of which (in our humble opinion) is the Tribute Monoface Small Seconds.
Encased in 18k pink gold, the watch, which earned rave reviews from the press, comes on a Milanese mesh bracelet. One of the secrets to its success is the softer, pinker, more vintage-looking hue of gold that JLC chose for the piece. The brand wasn’t alone—unlike past years, when steel dominated the fair, gold in shades of pink, rose, even red was the indisputable metal of the moment.
H. Moser & Cie. Endeavour Small Seconds Concept Pop
Endeavour Small Seconds Concept Pop in 38 mm steel case case with Burma jade and
Peruvian pink opal dial, 30,500 Swiss francs (about $37,264); H. Moser & Cie
Last month, we wrote about the renaissance of gem-set watches, particularly those featuring hardstone mineral dials. Heading into Watches and Wonders, we clearly knew they were a thing, but even we were not prepared for the flood of timepieces bearing faces of opaque and colorful gemstones, including lapis lazuli, malachite and opal.
The coolest contribution to the category came courtesy of H. Moser & Cie., which released its Pop collection of Endeavor Small Seconds Concept models the day before Watches and Wonders opened. Described as a “chromatic odyssey,” the line features a wild and unexpected mix of stones, including Burmese jade, turquoise, coral, pink opal, lapis lazuli and lemon chrysoprase.
In keeping with the brand’s minimalist styling, there are no logos or indexes on the dials—just unique pairings of gems in concentric designs that let the stones shine.
Cartier Tank à Guichets
Tank à Guichets in 37.6 x 24.8 mm, price on request
Cartier Tank à Guichets
Although many people have never seen a “jump hour” watch, it’s actually an anachronism. Developed by the Austrian watchmaker Josef Pallweber in the 1880s, the mechanism displays the hour in a window or an aperture on the dial, with one hour “jumping” to the next once 60 minutes have passed. The digital-like display was reborn in January, when Louis Vuitton introduced its new Tambour Convergence, a jump hour watch in two iterations, one with a solid rose gold dial and the other with a dial frosted in diamond pavé.
At Watches and Wonders, Bremont introduced a Terra Nova Jumping Hour in bronze. But the jump hour model that ruled the fair was undoubtedly Cartier’s sleek new Tank à Guichets, a rectangular watch rendered in four references: three (in yellow gold, rose gold and platinum) feature the hour display in a small aperture at 12 o’clock and the minute display in an arcing aperture at 6 o’clock, while the fourth, limited to 200 pieces, comes in a platinum case with an hour window at 10 o’clock and a minutes window at 6 o’clock. Anyone seduced by the model would be wise to, all puns intended, get a jump on it.
