Is it time for the return of the pocket watch?

Anyone watching the new Peaky Blinders film and with an eye to style will no doubt overlook the flatcaps and tieless shirts and note the readiness with which the anti-heroes reach for their waistcoat pocket to find their watches. The pocket watch was a slightly antiquated choice even by the era depicted, during the Second World War. Now, you might imagine, it would be positively anachronistic.

'But the pocket watch remains an object of emotion even if it’s rare to see it in everyday use now,' says Guido Terrini, the CEO of Parmigiani Fleurier, which recently released its La Revenale, a Lepine pocket watch with a minute repeater and a restored, historic, ultra-thin calibre, to mark the birthday of the company’s founder. It’s one of three pocket watches Parmigiani has released to date.

‘A pocket watch gives you more volume to play with [from the design and mechanics standpoint] and, horologically speaking, pocket watch movements are extremely interesting. But of course, pocket watches also come with the allure of a certain kind of expression,’ continues Terrini.

Indeed, Parmigiani is not the only high-end brand to release a pocket watch to mark an occasion or as statement of its heritage. Earlier in 2026, Audemars Piguet unveiled its limited-edition 150 Heritage pocket watch, with a universal calendar and mechanical calculator among its 30 complications, making for a hefty piece that would likely require a reinforced pocket. And it was with its Les Cabinotiers Berkley pocket watch that, in 2024, Vacheron Constantin produced the most complicated watch yet made, with 63 complications.

But there’s also a steady stream of pocket watches from brands offering a more accessible product, and/or a more contemporary one. Hermès, for one, has become a regular maker of pocket watches, with its blue enamel Arceau Chevaloscope Neon a standout.

Urwerk, which launched a pocket watch a decade ago, has it in mind to use the format again for a portable atomic clock project. 'The size is such that it would feasibly work inside a pocket watch case, and we’ve come up with some cool designs,' says co-founder Martin Frei. 'The pocket watch may be a bit “show off” for some people, but it’s a way of carrying time that shouldn’t be overlooked.'

The British independent brand The Camden Watch Company this year launched its first pocket watch – in a modern-meets-Victorian style – following customer requests. And when Studio Underdog and Christopher Ward teamed up on a timepiece at the end of 2025, they opted for a (now sold out) 100-piece-edition pocket watch, The Alliance 02.

'Pocket watches are just cool – and watch designers don’t often get the opportunity to work on one,' enthuses Studio Underdog’s founder Richard Benc, who has a second pocket watch collaboration in mind. 'In the world of mechanical watches, it’s a niche within a niche within a niche, but the pocket watch’s appeal may be that it speaks to a different pace of life in that it makes checking the time more intentional. It’s the opposite of the Apple Watch in some ways.'

'Watch collectors will look to pocket watches because they see them as an important part of horological history,' adds David Steyffer, head of archive for IWC, which last launched a pocket watch in 2018 to mark the brand’s 150th anniversary. He notes that, sadly, many gold pocket watches are being melted down because the precious metal is of such high value at the moment. 'Certainly, fashion plays a part in the pocket watch’s appeal too. There is a Peaky Blinders Effect. But, critically, the pocket watch doesn’t have to be received as old-fashioned at all.'

Nor does using one necessitate the cosplay-lite of wearing a waistcoat: Benc has found that customers of The Alliance 02 are just as happy to simply slip it into their jeans pocket, or use it as a desk clock. Indeed, aren’t we used to pulling a mobile phone out of a pocket to check the time? Isn’t that essential, especially to those many, and particularly younger, people who don’t wear a watch, and have no interest in doing so? Could that habit prove a gateway to the mainstream return of the pocket watch?

Terrini is not so sure about this idea. Yes, he says, reaching for a pocket watch is, he says, ‘a beautiful gesture – it’s looking at the time with more care’, but he thinks to go from smartphone to pocket watch appreciation – by-passing wristwatches – is to miss ‘an entire and necessary educational phase’. Maybe pocket watches remain for the more dandyish connoisseur after all.