Karel Bachand, mechanical engineer-turned-Nasa-systems-designer-turned-watchmaker, doesn’t get it either: why has the watch industry not yet produced a mechanical wristwatch designed from the ground up for use in space? It’s been over 60 years…

For one, it’s a matter of industry dynamics. 'Space is such a wild west right now and while it’s a huge trillion-dollar industry that’s unfolding, there’s no way for companies to address every bit of hardware,' he says. 'Who’s designing shovels for use in space, for instance? Instead, the focus is on the big challenges – food, water, shelter – and smaller tools are underserved right now.'

But, he adds, it’s also a matter of politics: the more established space industry – of government agencies – is one of 'bureaucracy and deep relationships that go back many years', he says. That makes it hard to break into what is a tiny market – for now – dominated by a handful of brands, these in turn dominated by Omega. Descendants of its ‘flight qualified’ Speedmaster – selected for, rather than designed for, early Nasa space missions – remain an astronaut’s go-to models.

Bachand, however, didn’t want to wait for an established watchmaker to wake up the potential of designing a watch for life in space, let alone the mission-critical need to provide a mechanical fail-safe, given solar radiation’s unfriendliness to electronics. Indeed, his California-based company Barrelhand might well claim to have created the first such watch, with its recently launched Monolith.

Six years in development, the model, the case of which is 3D-printed in a modified aluminium alloy, not only meets ISO aerospace standards, Nasa materials guidance and EVA/spacewalk testing protocols, but directly addresses each of the extreme environmental challenges of space (much, he notes, as established brands used to do in supporting deep-sea and polar exploration).

Most stark is the need to insulate the movement against temperature variations of -246ºC through to +120ºC – achieved by hollowing out the case to create air pockets all around it, while fine-tuning tolerances and using compatible materials to allow parts to expand and contract. This also drastically reduces the Monolith’s weight, to just 31g. In spaceflight, it can cost $5,000 to get 1kg just into low Earth orbit, so every gram saved counts.

The movement is mounted on a shock-absorption system, theoretically capable of withstanding a force of 3,000 Gs. Since much over 10 Gs will kill its wearer, that seems sufficiently covered. The watch is also assembled without glues – the internal structure of brass plates is welded with Torx screws, chosen because they’re accessible using International Space Station (ISS) tool sets, should servicing the watch while in space be required.

The Monolith has already been worn in space, on a Blue Origin mission, with Barrelhand now working on getting one onto the ISS for third-party testing, while also seeking contracts. 'When we talk to people responsible for tool acquisition or astronaut training [within space agencies or private space companies], the response is very positive – they get what the Monolith offers,' Bachard enthuses. 'The people who matter just want the best shit for the job.' Since the Monolith is an open-source design, they’re welcome to chip in with ideas too.

They no doubt also appreciate the name. Monolith may sound inappropriate for a tool watch that wears its presence very lightly but it is, of course, a nod to 2001: A Space Odyssey. That in part derives from Bachand’s romantic vision that 'someone or something discovers this tool on the surface of the moon or Mars one day as signal to the cosmos that we were here' – and since each watch’s case-back is embedded with a holographic disc containing samples from 1,000 years of human culture, they’ll get more than a curious object. But it’s also more literal. Each of the Monolith’s indices is proportionately the same as the big black slab from Kubrick’s film.

Although it may be the first true space watch – the Gagarin of space watches, if you will – the Monolith will likely not be the last, with Bachand expecting established brands eventually to see the value of designing for this burgeoning market too. Providing, he suggests, that they can see space as a market, rather than as just a storytelling opportunity.

'The identity of so many brands is built around luxury and heritage now, such that to build an actual tool watch again would be almost counter-cultural, even if they have the money, people and ability to do so,' he suggests. 'But there’s clearly a need here.'

barrelhand.com/monolith

In October 1950, a new weekly comic strip, Peanuts, debuted in seven newspapers across the United States. Created by American cartoonist and writer Charles M Schulz, it followed the exploits of Patty, Shermy, Charlie Brown and his dog, Snoopy.

Born in Minneapolis in 1922, Schluz grew up during the Great Depression, serving in the United States Army during the Second World War, before embarking on a career as a cartoonist. Once remarking that the army ‘taught me all I need to know about loneliness’, Schulz infused this melancholy into the character of Charlie Brown.

His dog, Snoopy, was the result of Schulz’s observation of the relationship between children and dogs, noting the particularly high levels of tolerance a dog has for children’s games, a patience that became the foundation of Charlie Brown and Snoopy’s alliance. Schulz, who had wanted to name the series Li'l Folks, based Snoopy on his childhood dog, Spike, originally drawing the animal as a very ordinary-looking black-and-white beagle who walked on all fours.

Over the years, Snoopy transformed, beginning to walk on two legs, and conducting a sly and playful inner monologue that readers accessed through his thought bubbles. Schulz simplified his drawing style, with Snoopy developing long ears and expressive dots for eyes. By Schulz’s final comic strip, in 2000, Snoopy’s form had been reduced to the essential, a distinctive mix of clean lines and abstract shapes.

Snoopy’s idiosyncrasies – sleeping on top of his kennel, experimenting with endless identities – meant both adults and children found him relatable. Snoopy imagined himself as everything from a First World War flying ace to a lawyer and a scout leader, and was usually preoccupied with themes of friendship, hope and disappointment.

The simplicity of his design made Snoopy both instantly recognisable – even at very small sizes – and adaptable. Snoopy moved easily from newspaper strips to toys, products, advertising campaigns and fashion collaborations.

Snoopy’s appeal transcended comics, extending into fashion and popular culture around the world. At its most popular, Peanuts was translated into 21 languages and syndicated in more than 2,600 newspapers across 75 countries. Notably, Nasa was particularly taken with Snoopy, using him as a safety mascot during the 1960s and introducing the Silver Snoopy Award, which was presented to those who make significant contributions to mission safety. The lunar module for the Apollo 10 mission, meanwhile, was dubbed ‘Snoopy,’ and the command module was called Charlie Brown.

The fashion industry, too, has embraced Snoopy, and he has appeared in collections by brands including Gucci and Lacoste, and on everything from sneakers to watches. Timex, which adopted Snoopy’s form in 1965, was one of the first brands to obtain licences for the use of the Peanuts characters, resulting in watches including the Peanuts x Timex Marlin Automatic Soccer.

Throughout its 50-year run, Schulz kept sole and complete creative control, personally penning every strip himself. It was a habit he maintained until his final strip, which appeared on 13 February 2000 – one day after his death.

This article appears in the August 2026, Creative America issue of Wallpaper*, available from 2 July in print on newsstands, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today

As its first watch, the original 1988 Monterey watch marked the beginning of a new path for Louis Vuitton. The only watch designed by Italian architect Gae Aulenti, it made for a striking choice for Louis Vuitton's watch debut. We saw it resurface in 2025 as a collector's heirloom, limited, pebble-smooth and making eighties Monterey values soar. Today it is back in techy ceramic as a runway charm.

The lugless gold pebble that Gae Aulenti sketched for the house set the tone for Louis Vuitton's watch language and proves that architectural watch design ages the way a good building does. The 2025 re-edition set the tone, but upscaled in spec from its eighties namesake, in 18-karat yellow gold. The Monterey was sized to 39mm and finished with a white grand feu enamel dial framed by red and blue railroad tracks, faithful to the original down to the crown perched at twelve o'clock rather than three. Aulenti positioned it there deliberately, borrowing the grammar of a pocket watch, and the result has always looked slightly foreign among conventional watches, setting the tone for Louis Vuitton and making it a cult favourite.

Now the Monterey has crossed into fashion. At Pharrell Williams's S/S 2027 men's show in Paris, Louis Vuitton unveiled two ceramic versions of the watch, one in glossy black, one in a bold green. They were presented not on wrists but as charms tied to the runway looks themselves, the latest sign that pocket and fob watches are making a return. The watch can be worn as an accessory, or as seen here, insouciantly dangle from a belt hoop.

The lugless case and the crown-at-twelve silhouette carry over unchanged, so the ceramic Monterey inhabits a quirky pocket watch silhouette, but that pocket-watch inheritance is not incidental. From Daniel Arsham’s teardrop Hublot to plastic Swatch Audemars Piguet collaborations, we see mechanical watches drifting further from the wrist and into the territory of decorative objects worn on chains and clipped to bags. Louis Vuitton, a house built on trunks and travel rather than horology, is unusually well positioned to make that case.

The ceramic editions arrive in stores from 26 September

louisvuitton.com

Jess Hannah Révész, founder and designer of fine jewellery brand J Hannah, creates jewellery in antithesis to the mass market. Her pieces, made in Los Angeles, encompass a slower, more ethical way of creating, a mindful philosophy brought to life in the new JH Editions collection.

The ongoing series of hand-created pieces marks the designer’s return to the bench – after having seen her time taken up with running the business – a move triggered by her desire to again experience the physicality of the process. ‘I don’t know that there was a singular moment so much as a gradual realisation that I missed making things,’ Hannah says. ‘Over time, my role shifted from fabricating jewellery myself to designing collections, managing production, marketing, and running a business. I genuinely enjoy those parts of the work (most of the time!), but they’re very different from sitting at a bench and the meditative experience of making something.’

The new pieces are created using the wax process – lost wax casting – where the jewellery form is first carved into wax before taking its final metal shape, here in 14ct and 18ct gold, studded with antique diamonds and reclaimed sapphires.

Hannah tells us how the new collection came to life.

W*: Can you tell us what you enjoy about the wax process?

JHR: What I love about wax is that it resists perfection. I originally learned through hand fabrication, where precision is often the goal – wax carving feels different. It's slower, more intuitive, a little less predictable. I usually begin with a loose idea, but the material has a way of steering the process. A slip of the tool or an unexpected contour often becomes the most interesting part of the piece.

The medium lends itself to open-ended outcomes partly because the material itself isn't precious... not yet, at least. With hand fabrication, there's an implicit pressure not to waste gold, which shapes the way you work. Wax removes that. The intention can just be to spend time in the process, without the outcome needing to justify it.

W*: What was key for you to consider in the design of these pieces?

JHR: In a way, the point was to consider design less. In my day-to-day work, design, collections, and market appeal are always part of the equation. With these pieces, I wanted to step away from that mindset and allow the process itself to lead. It was more personal, for me. I just happen to have a studio practice where the output is gold jewellery, so it makes sense to share and sell it too.

Rather than focusing on how a piece might fit into a collection or be received commercially, I tried to follow instinct and just make. Many of the forms draw from jewellery history, which is a constant source of fascination for me – signets, seal fobs, talismans, antique stones – but I wasn’t interested in developing them into a cohesive collection.

Instead, I wanted to explore them freely, fragmenting, simplifying, or reinterpreting them without worrying too much about the outcome.

The challenge was resisting the urge to control everything or evaluate the work too quickly. I wanted the process to remain intuitive and exploratory, and to leave room for surprise and imperfection. There are pieces in the series that I utterly adore and others that I don't. Part of this practice has been learning to make the work, put it into the world, and worry less about whether I think it’s ‘good enough’. The process itself is the purpose.

Oddly, this feels far more vulnerable than releasing a collection. For the past decade, I’ve been presenting work that has been refined, edited, and developed through a larger design process. These pieces feel closer to the source. They’re less filtered, which makes sharing them feel more personal.

W*: What did you find most challenging in the process?

JHR: Probably learning to let the process lead. When you’re designing for a collection, you’re often thinking about cohesion, production, pricing, customer response, and a hundred other considerations at once. This required a different mindset.

Some of my favourite pieces came from abandoning an original plan and following a small accident or unexpected idea instead. That can be uncomfortable because it means giving up a certain amount of control, which is hard for me. The challenge was trusting that not every piece needed a clear vision in order to be worth making.

jhannahjewelry.com

'What I didn’t want to do was one of those collaborations where it’s just a matter of putting another name on the dial,' says Thibaut Guittard. 'For me a collaboration with an artist really has to make sense. If it’s going to be a piece of art in its own right, it has to be meaningful.'

Guittard, one time marketing manager for Audemars Pigeut in France, is the founder of Alto, launched three years ago and the only brand established to create watches specifically in collaboration with artists. Its first collaborative watch, just launched, is with the French contemporary sculptor Bernar Venet, known for his monumental, mathematically-precise pieces in Cor-Ten steel.

Its point of difference? The one-piece dial of the Art 01 - of which only 10 pieces will be made - comprises a micro-sculpture by Venet. The watches don’t make use of Cor-Ten steel - since the resulting magnetic effect would be detrimental to the performance of the movement - but of bronze, patinated in the same way using a process developed in-house by Alto.

The dial is also just 0.8mm deep, enough to register the shifts in light and darkness that Venet’s design requires - 'it’s also the volume aspect of the dial that makes it interesting,' Guittard argues - while keeping the watch’s weight to a minimum, and leaving enough room for movement and hands without the finished watch being too thick.

'It was technically very challenging, but the appeal to Venet was that work at such a small scale was in many ways a different proposition for him, while we look on art as perhaps the second biggest means of collaborative communication after sport,' says Guittard. 'These watches are likely for art lovers first. But since the art world tends to be about excluding people, a project like this is also a way for watch fans to be brought into the art world, to discover the artist.'

Alto is now lining up his next artist collaboration, but will first launch a smaller, thinner skeletonised watch - its second, in-house, 3D dial design - in September. By then it will also have been joined by other watchmakers launching artist collaborations: in August Ressence, for example, releases a watch designed in collaboration with Belgian artist Jules Wittock, who free-hand draws intricate mazes; follow a line from start to finish and it reveals a word.

The dial of Ressence’s Type 9 watch - in an edition of around 80 - will carry one of Wittock’s drawings, across the brand’s signature orbiting discs time display. Only at midnight will the display align to allow the word, written in Super-luminova, to be read in the dark.

'The fact is that a watch collaboration with an artist is always a more interesting thing than a collaboration with a retailer,' Ressence’s found Benoit Mintiens suggests. 'Working with an artist you invariably get something you wouldn’t think to do as a watchmaker, while the artist gets to work on something they wouldn’t normally do either, to work on a much smaller, moving canvas. The result is something different. Many watch collaborations are commercially-driven now. What you still get with an artist is a philosophical dimension to a new design.'

The meeting of these two minds is not always easy to pull off though, Mintiens stresses, not least when 'super-cool artists' fail to understand how their ideas may not be translatable into the parameters of watchmaking. 'It can’t be made at scale, or it would be way to expensive or, you know, they insist that it’s made out of translucent titanium,' Mintiens laughs. 'It can get a bit weird.'

Working with an artist can be a leap of faith, agrees Lewis Heath, founder of British sister brands Anordain and Paulin - 'you’re often not quite sure if an artist’s ideas will really be any good on a watch until you’re at the sampling stage,' he notes. And yet the results do typically stand out, which, in an increasingly crowded market of new watch releases, can be critical.

Paulin recently released watches in collaboration with the multi-disciplinary Glasgow artist John Nicol on a series of dials each hand-painted by him in a vibrant abstract style. Anordain has even worked with the artist Rachel Duckhouse - best known for her etching - on the look not a new dial, but of a new movement, seen through an exhibition caseback. Its next artist collaboration is already underway.

'The best thing about artist collaborations is that the artists tend not to know untying about watches,' says Heath, 'so their ideas don’t come coloured by what’s already out there.'

The annual Cartier Prize for Watchmaking Talents of Tomorrow, spotlighting the best up-and-coming talent in the watchmaking industry, is a savvy indicator of who will be disrupting the industry in a decade.

For the prize’s 2026 iteration, the watchmaking apprentices and technicians were asked to create a watch inspired by the movements of a pendulum as it swings backwards and forwards, for the theme ‘Shifting the balance: Reading and understanding time differently’.

The students, from Switzerland, France and Belgium, took a non-traditional approach to the topic, with the 12 finalists developing their concepts over three months, supported throughout by their mentors.

The final designs were considered by a jury comprising Roy Davidoff, a specialist in vintage watches and co-founder of Roy & Sacha Davidoff SA; Pascale Lepeu, director of the Cartier Collection; Nathalie Marielloni, curator at the Musée international d'horlogerie; Pascal Ravessoud, vice-president of the Fondation de la Haute Horlogerie, watchmaking specialist and collector; and Kari Voutilainen, independent watchmaker. They selected six winners – three watchmaking apprentices and three technicians – who will receive a Cartier watch, with the first prize winner in each category also offered an internship with Cartier.

Aymeric Peters from Belgium won first prize in the Apprentice Watchmakers category, with the winning design meditating on suspended time. Joint second prize was awarded to Layla Sluysmans and Edouard Nicod, who considered ideas on slowing down and opposites, respectively.

Arthur Choquet won the first technician’s prize, with a creation that intertwined the importance of architecture throughout. Adam Deroche scooped second place, asking what would happen if time stood still, while Adrien Stefenelli took third prize for unpicking the echo.

For Cartier, the award is an essential part of supporting and mentoring young people in their passions. ‘This award is very significant to Cartier, as the maison has always felt it had a responsibility to inspire vocations and nurture talent in order to pass on its vision of watchmaking and its dedication to craftsmanship,’ says Karim Drici, Cartier chief operating officer. ‘It is exciting to see the passion of these young watchmakers: the competition provides a space for free expression and emotional exchange, where technical expertise, creativity, and innovation meet. ‘

Drici adds: ‘The prize, first launched in 1995 by the Cartier Watchmaking Institute and dedicated to young watchmaking students, is a direct expression of that commitment. It allows us to stand alongside those who want to pursue this career and will shape the watchmaking of tomorrow.

‘Through this prize, we want to give young watchmakers the opportunity to express themselves fully, from design all the way through to creating a timepiece. The goal is not only to showcase their technical skills but also their creativity, because both will define the future of watchmaking. Above all, the prize is about enriching their professional training. Observing these young talents makes us particularly confident for the future. Most are around 18-20 years old – and yet they demonstrate remarkable concentration, commitment, and maturity.’

cartier.com

Among the hundreds of dazzling treasures on show at NGV’s ‘Cartier’ exhibition, Pascale Lepeu would, in an emergency, save the Model A mystery clock first. It’s an horological marvel in which diamond-encrusted hands appear to float inside a crystal block with no visible mechanism. For Lepeu, Cartier Collection director, the 1914 timepiece is of ‘perfect proportions, representing all three dimensions of Cartier: the precious object maker, watchmaker and jeweller combined’.

The clock is restrained by the maison’s usual opulent standards, displayed in the most sober of the themed galleries housing the largest Cartier exhibition ever held in Australia. Designed by Rotterdam-based Sabine Marcelis, principal of her eponymous studio, and Paul Cournet of Cloud, the carpeted spaces lead visitors on a colour-coded arc through the evolution of the nearly 180-year-old maison.

Co-curated with the V&A’s Helen Molesworth, the exhibition builds on the original 2025 London show, with a much larger presentation of nearly 400 jewels and timepieces, deepened by a trove of archival material and an original soundtrack by Ai Yamamoto and Erkki Veltheim. Notably, the brutalist-era NGV allows the exhibits more room to breathe, compared to the 19th-century V&A.

A 27m-long glass mirror, progressing in an ombre from yellow to pink and deep red, greets visitors at the entrance. 'It reflects light and introduces you to the colour palette of what’s to come, embodying how my world and Cartier’s collide,' says Marcelis. It leads to the Manchester tiara, an early example of Cartier’s signature Garland style. Made in 1903 for the Dowager Duchess of Manchester, its 1,500-plus diamonds sparkle as it sits solo under the spotlight.

From there, the exhibition sweeps across decades and continents, charting its innovations through the stories of its patrons and heiresses to fortunes – Daisy Fellowes, Barbara Hutton, Doris Duke – as much as the objects themselves. New for Australian audiences is a collection of early-20th-century pieces commissioned by opera legend Dame Nellie Melba, featuring her beloved turquoise and diamonds alongside Cartier’s pioneering use of platinum.

In a bold yellow room, displays trace the Cartier brothers’ world of inspiration, spanning Egypt, India, China, Japan and Iran. Among many highlights is a necklace commissioned by the Maharaja of Patiala, its 2,930 diamonds anchored by a 234.65ct De Beers yellow diamond – lost after Indian independence and rediscovered in 1998, stripped of its finest stones, which Cartier replaced with replicas.

Next, an emerald cut-like volume distils the Cartier style that came to prominence at the 1925 Paris International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts (its centenary recently honoured). It was when the celebrated Tutti Frutti creations emerged, luscious clusters of carved rubies, sapphires and emeralds made possible by Indian coloured gemstones and artisans. 'It was neither Indian nor Parisian. It simply did not exist before and we made something entirely new,' says Lepeu.

The mood shifts in the Obsession with Stones room. Its glass central volume glows at the edges, making visitors 'feel like you’re inside a gemstone', says Marcelis. Among vintage and modern pieces, like a 2015 bracelet with a 189.345ct Australian black opal, space is dedicated to Jeanne Toussaint, creative director from 1933 to 1970, who elevated the panther motif into an icon. A highlight: a clip brooch owned by the Duchess of Windsor, its platinum and diamond cat resting on a 152.35ct cabochon sapphire. 'To create a jewel with an animal that represents power and independence, that was really new and shocking,' says Lepeu, of an era when women were finding greater freedoms.

A metallic-grey Watches and Clocks room acts as a palate cleanser before the shock of green in the Film and Celebrity room, where Elizabeth Taylor’s Burmese ruby and diamond necklace from third husband Mike Todd sits near outré pieces commissioned by Mexican film star Maria Felix, including articulated snake and crocodile necklaces in diamonds and emeralds that show off Cartier’s technical prowess.

The show culminates in a rotunda housing 24 tiaras, including a pair of turquoise and diamond headpieces worn by sisters Lady Nancy Astor and Lady Phyllis Brand, shown together for the first time in decades, and the 1902 Scroll tiara, worn most recently by Rihanna on the cover of W magazine.

Newer pieces sit beside older ones throughout, and a continuous narrative rooted in culture and innovation emerges. Lepeu calls it Cartier’s vocabulary: ‘a new jewel is a new sentence using our words’, a language that remains spellbinding more than a century on.

‘Cartier’ is on display 12 June to 4 October 2026, at NGV International, Melbourne

ngv.vic.gov.au

In 2001, Richard Mille unveiled the RM 001 Tourbillon prototype at Baselworld, raising the bar in the watch industry. The first RM case was tonneau-shaped, in grade 5 titanium, with an open-worked movement visible on both sides, with a tourbillon. Featuring the world’s first torque indicator in a wristwatch, it introduced a shape we today recognise as the brand’s own. In fact, within an industry obsessed with reviving past glories, it has also inspired today’s rise of independent watchmakers eschewing retro for avant-garde, futurist designs.

With Mille, ergonomics and light wearability goes hand in hand with technology, and is always at the forefront of Mille’s output. The architecture of the RM 001 bridges and baseplate appeared to be drawn explicitly from Formula One suspension geometry. Nothing else on any stand that year looked remotely like it, and Mille followed with the 2002 RM 002 Tourbillon, the serial production model of the RM 001 as a 25-piece limited release featuring the world’s first nanofibre baseplate.

Twenty-five years is long enough to establish a brand, and long enough to see whether the founding premise can keep collectors’ attention. For Richard Mille, it did - in the face of changing tastes and tastemakers, Richard Mille seems to inhabit a separate sphere of collectability. With extremely high prices, demand is still outstripping supply. The RM 001 treated the wristwatch as an engineering project first, and with every subsequent reference, Richard Mille’s team has pushed that logic into new territory, with a materials list that reads like an aerospace procurement order: Carbon TPT, Quartz TPT, grade 5 titanium and lithium-aluminium alloy. The brand was also one of the first to endeavour to machine a clear sapphire crystal into a structural watch case.

The brand sensibility is consistent whether the brief originates in a tennis court, a dive bell or a couture atelier, but sport gave the brand its most recognisable chapter, with the RM 006 Tourbillon Felipe Massa opening the doors. This was the first RM model to bear the name of a brand partner, and capable of resisting the G-forces of F1 racetrack conditions. Brand ambassadors, partners in RM speak, is not a new concept, but for Richard Mille the wrists of F1 drivers and top athletes became de facto product test benches. The RM 027, developed for Nadal became a definitive statement of that collaboration: a tourbillon that withstood the centrifugal loading of a world-class serve, with an otherworldy case featuring a Carbon TPT unibody baseplate and watch case. This supported grade 5 titanium bridgework, framed by a bezel and case back machined from organic layers of Quartz TPT® and Carbon TPT®, entirely outside the vocabulary of traditional haute horlogerie. The engineering required to achieve it was akin to motorsport component development, but in miniature.

The RM 025 series was the first big lateral move of the brand, adopting a new, DNA-proofed visual language that offers a more circular take on Mille’s vision. Tough dive watches, still sometimes featuring precious metal, and extending Mille’s design philosophy into a deep blue-green world where pressure and darkness replace the heat and vibration of a tennis rally. We all know that most collectors will not take a supercar-priced wristwatch with them cave diving in Mexico, but with a case built to withstand operational conditions at hundreds of meters below the surface, it might still inspire you.

Richard Mille is to many defined by its connection to sport and motor racing, but the surprising chic of the Bonbon collection was a deliberately bright, unashamedly decorative counterpoint. Appealing to both a female and male audience, it offered something fresh, eschewing the idea that technical seriousness required an industrial, often monochrome vibe. In addition to the Bonbon collection, Richard Mille has a strong history of gem-set complexities like the RM 19-02 Tourbillon Fleur, a creation that underlines a solid following within the world of high jewellery and fashion. In this environ, Richard Mille doesn’t compete with other watches, but with couture and gemstones, the creations like the RM 19-02 and the fresh Bonbon pieces function as both product and manifesto for the brand, the latter also unashamedly fun.

At twenty-five, the brand has no 20th-century historical archive to mine or heritage complication to reissue, as Richard Mille and his team look ever forward.

Which makes the latest lithe, manual wind RM 55-01 a fitting place to close. Worn by athletes, including the multi-hyphenate cyclist Mathieu van der Poel, the latest of a long line of partners that’ll put Richard Mille’s wristwear to the toughest of tests. The superlight watch is monochrome and skeletal, the grey version featuring pops of pink, and sits at the intersection of sport, material innovation and open-worked spectacle that has always characterised Richard Mille’s ethos. It is technical, specific, it is recognisable from fifty metres, and takes itself only as seriously as the moment demands. Twenty-five years in, that remains the sharpest summary of the proposition of a watch brand set apart.

richardmille.com

For Sarabande Foundation alumni Martina Kocianova, jewellery is an extension of her passions, and luckily mushroom foraging lends itself well to offbeat and eclectic jewellery pieces.

Kocianova, who grew up in Slovakia, spent her childhood mushroom foraging with her mother. Upon moving to London, she studied at Central Saint Martins before getting into the Sarabande artists programme, which offered her a studio and a raft of new opportunities. ‘I could properly focus on developing my skills and craft and I got much better at stone setting and carving,’ Kocianova says. ‘I built my first commercially successful collection - the peak, though, was Sarah Burton buying a bunch of my jewellery pieces.’

Considering her new collection, it felt natural for Kocianova to draw on her culture and background, epitomised by the mushroom. ‘When I was at Central Saint Martins, I was really trying to find my voice as a designer, and I realised mushrooms are very specific to my experience. They also really connect to being Eastern European, because it’s something so many families do there – it’s part of how you grow up.

‘Once I started researching mushrooms more, I got quite obsessed with how mycelium connects nature together. I started experimenting with mycelium and thinking about mushrooms not just visually, but also conceptually.’

Kocianova’s mushrooms are crafted in gold and set with materials including emerald, jade, red jasper and rainbow moonstone. Each piece corresponds to a star sign, another of her interests. Each is customisable based on Sun, Moon, and Rising, with each mushroom shaped and set using the corresponding stones.

‘As my jewellery resonated with people, I realised mushrooms are actually perfect talismans,’ she adds. ‘They naturally carry ideas of luck, magic and transformation. It just became the symbol of my work. Now people come to me specifically for mushrooms, sometimes even asking me to carve them from their own crystals, which makes it really personal. My aim is quite simple - I just want to be the one people think of when they want a mushroom heirloom. And I’m always trying to find more of those mushroom people.’

martinakocianova.com

Zenith’s new Chronomaster Revival A384 Tropical is aptly named: it comes with an El Primero 400 calibre true to the watch design’s 1969 origins. But the most striking thing about the A384 is its dial: a distinctive, washed-out shade of brown, a PVD coating having been applied to make it look aged, or ‘tropical’.

That’s an effect more typically found on a vintage watch whose dial has been subject to intense heat and humidity over many years. It’s just one of the many fading effects – along with the likes of a ‘ghost' bezel, in which the numbers have disappeared over time – beloved by many vintage watch collectors and for which they will pay handsomely, if they can find it.

'And it’s very hard to find a tropical dial with a homogeneously even fade,' says Romain Marietta, chief product officer of Zenith, which has a second tropical dial model in the pipeline. 'Of all the tropical dials we’ve had in to sell through our vintage programme, we’ve only seen one like that. Is it pretending that the watch is aged? Sure. But it’s not cheating. It’s the flavour of a watch 50 years old without having to wait for it.'

Indeed, if the idea of treating a new dial to make it look old is not a new one º many watch brands have used a yellow/ivory lume paint, for example, this fading from the original white being another indicator of ageing – Zenith too is not the only brand to push this more distinctive tropical effect. Panerai and Tudor, for example, the latter with the new Monarch, have opted for patinated-effect, sepia-tinged dials, while Movado has tropicalised the dial of its latest Field Watch. Nivada Grenchen, which first explored the idea with its Chronomaster, has applied it to its Super Antarctic model.

A tropical effect only works with a model that has a vintage aesthetic – it looks wrong on models that are too modern, argues Guillaume Laidet, chief brand officer for Nivada Grenchen, which introduced its tropical dials precisely to make the look more affordable relative to ‘the real thing’. 'It’s perhaps akin to the jeans market - some people want to buy new and wear them in over time, and others want to have the character that comes with fading and distressing from the start.'

Since even Nivada’s artificially aged dials have to go through a complex and secretive though imprecise method of chemical washes - 'in a machine something like a dishwasher,' says Laidet - even these offer what the naturally-aged ones do: uniqueness. 'You need a repeatable process to develop these dials but it’s one with a lot of wastage - which makes the resulting watches more expensive - and you still end up with each one being slightly different,' he says.

Indeed, while watches in the vintage market increasingly see faked tropical dials - such is the difference in price, around two to three times, that a tropical dial commands - some might balk at the idea of a new watch similarly being given a vintage effect in this way. Isn’t it a challenge to notions of authenticity?

But David Silver, owner of specialist Rolex dealer The Vintage Watch Company, argues that not only is the effect broadly appealing for its warmth and character, but that it will only further enhance the appeal of genuinely tropical pieces. 'There are many people who are into the effect on vintage watches and less into the price,' he says. 'It’s a certain customer that wants to pay for [an authentic] tropical dial - for its distinction, rarity and colour.'

There’s another reason why brands might be tempted to artificially ‘distress’ a dial for this aged effect. Genuine tropical dials are, Silver reckons, set to become increasingly rare over the longer term. Rolex, for example, will recommend a tropical dial be replaced if a watch is sent to it for servicing: it is, after all, a repairable ‘fault’ that has come about through wear and tear.

'And it’s only a matter of time before such signs of aging in a watch are probably lost,' Silver explains. 'You can be sure that in time a company the likes of Rolex - which hates the faded world, and for which it’s all about preserving or enhancing the functionality of the watch - will engineer out the patination process, by using materials that will better fix the colour. That will take the charm out of the aging process.'

For Venezuelan-born, Texas-based Susana Vega, jewellery design is a continuation of the craft she witnessed in childhood. Growing up, her family’s goldsmith workshop shaped a sensual approach to design, resulting in an appreciation of materials and imperfect forms.

Moving to Houston cemented this feeling, Vega says. ‘After leaving Venezuela, design took on a much deeper meaning for me. It’s not the same to be inspired by the nature and women of your country when you’re no longer there, and when you don’t know when you’ll return. There’s a profound sense of nostalgia behind my collections, an amplified love for the places I knew, and a longing for the ones I didn’t get to experience. Even if my collections don’t explicitly reference Venezuela by name, the feeling is always there.’

It is a philosophy encapsulated in the new collection, Soto, composed of hand-crafted wooden jewellery. ‘I wanted to respect the material by keeping the forms simple, timeless, yet sculptural; creating the feeling of a small, wearable work of art,’ adds Vega. ‘This collection was a huge learning experience. I loved discovering how noble wood is; how it allows itself to be shaped, sanded, and polished, how something so raw can be transformed by hand into something refined and beautiful.’

Handcrafted in Guatemala by artisans, the jewellery celebrates the natural character of the wood, keeping the small variations in grain and form, which ensures no two pieces are alike. Its distinct character encouraged Vega to design in a new way, removing, carving and sculpting the material rather than adding to it, and embracing simpler, more organic forms. ‘Understanding that shift, and designing within the virtues and limitations of the material, was both the challenge and the beauty of the process.’

Throughout, Vega pays special attention to a sense of proportion and the golden ratio, which dictates a harmony in design. She adds: ‘Nothing is accidental; everything you see has been carefully thought through to feel balanced, beautiful, and intriguing.’

susanavegajewelry.com

‘While my jewellery is often considered minimalist in style, this is not my intention when designing,’ says Yuta Ishihara, founder of Tokyo-based jewellery brand, Shihara. ‘My work is guided by an interest in reconstructing and refining essential functions. I find that beautiful designs are not always easy to use, and conversely, designs that are easy to use or familiar are not necessarily beautiful.’

Ishihara is seeking that harmonious balance between form and function which defines his clean and conceptual jewellery design. Encompassing long, fluid lines in 18k gold, platinum and diamonds, Shihara’s jewellery is fuss-free, eschewing fastenings and locks and focusing instead on pure silhouettes.

In the new Node series, Ishihara translates the fastening into a decorative element in its own right, with the wearer invited to choose their own ball chains and fastenings, crafted in gold or with mini Akoya pearls, separately. ‘These elements can be combined in various ways, such as attaching a necklace-length or bracelet-length chain to earring fastenings, or combining multiple fastenings with a single chain,’ Ishihara explains. ‘This approach gives the wearer the freedom to customise how they wear each piece, making the jewellery uniquely their own.’

The jewellery may look precise and sharply-cut, but is all made by hand using specialised tools and machinery, and maintaining identical dimensions is challenging. ‘At the same time, discovering new and inventive ways to reimagine function is something I truly enjoy,’ Ishihara adds. ‘It is especially rewarding to see customers interact with the jewellery and appreciate how Shihara introduces new ways of wearing it.’

Shihara is available at Dover Street Market, London

doverstreetmarket.com

TAG Heuer’s Monaco is one of those instantly recognisable profiles that means even quite bold variations sit behind the basic shape – a glance at distance is enough to identify it even in moody black DLC or white ceramic. And with that ID, TAG Heuer’s motorsport heritage jumps to mind – that movie still of Steve McQueen in striped racing overall in particular. What colour the dial is, or whether it is a chronograph, or what side the crown sits, almost always comes a distant second to that shape.

I’m not sure if the new Monaco Speed 12 (launched to coincide with the Monaco Grand Prix) will quite break that rule, but it’s undoubtedly the most striking variation yet. While the titanium case is standard, it’s what is within that catches the eye. The result of collaboration with one of the most creative forces in contemporary watchmaking, La Fabrique du Temps Louis Vuitton, the Speed 12 is automotive emotion in miniature, its Spin Time based TH84-00 movement taking on the guise of a 12-cylinder rotary engine - if you can imagine such a thing.

TAG Heuer has quite a history with out-there movement designs. The only other Monaco to look like something else is the belt-driven V4 concept from the early 2000s, and the Speed 12 sits well with that history, though as a 50 watch limited edition this definitely not a concept watch.

The movement is a motorsport take on Louis Vuitton’s signature movement, with each hour ‘piston’ (finished contrasting sand-blasted and polished treatments) spinning in turn to reveal the hour number as the minute hand hits the 12 o’clock position. The centre of the dial is dominated by the grooved engine block that carries the Monaco and TAG Heuer badges, while the red-tipped minute hand and track recall classic dashboard dials, all very Grand Prix appropriate.

tagheuer.com

London jeweller Lucy Delius is bringing a gothic edge to pearls with a new collection which strings oversized black baroque pearls onto knotted silk. Available at Dover Street Market (DSM), the collection marks a step into the theatrical for Delius, who launched her brand four years ago. ‘I wanted to create a bigger, bolder silhouette than I've typically been able to do in gold,’ she says. ‘Something that felt a bit more playful. The idea of these misshapen, inky molten pearls just really spoke to me. It's been amazing to work with a different material. These still carry the wearability that has become synonymous with my brand.’

The offbeat style is a natural fit for DSM. ‘Lucy’s jewellery works so well because it feels considered but never overcomplicated,’ says the store’s director of jewellery, Mimi Hoppen. ‘There is a balance between instinct and intention that sits very comfortably within the way we approach curation.’

Ultimately, this is jewellery made to be worn. Adds Hoppen: There is a real sensitivity and consideration around how the jewellery sits on the body and works with other pieces, but is still strong enough in its designs to be worn on its own.'

lucydelius.co, doverstreetmarket.com

This article appears in the July 2026 Issue of Wallpaper*, available from 4 June in print on newsstands, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today

Claude Monet, as the father of Impressionism, was obsessed with light, believing that it transformed the essence of colour as day progressed into night. He painted the same scenes in the French countryside multiple times a day, capturing their transformation and a century on from his study of how ‘envelopes’ of light and air changed our view of the world, an exhibition touching on his legacy will begin in Paris at L’ École School of Jewelry Arts dedicated to American artist Daniel Brush entitled The Art of Light and Line.

Seventy-five of Brush’s paintings, standalone and wearable sculptures will be presented, some of which have never left his New York studio in a body of work that both contemplates and celebrates the freedom of light and movement that Monet articulated in his own work. The exhibition is curated by Olivia Brush, Daniel’s lifelong muse, partner and collaborator and the writer and historian Vivienne Becker, inviting visitors to experience Brush’s vision in a symphony of materials including pure gold, steel, plastic, resin, ink, diamonds and canvas.

Daniel passed away in 2022 and during his career, he rejected the idea that art should be segmented to make it more understandable, denouncing the hierarchy that polarises fine and decorative art. 'This is not easy work,' says Olivia Brush. 'It is important for people to see and understand that an artist does not need to be bound, branded or categorised.' Key works in the exhibition are Maze, a handheld object paying homage to the Byzantine Mosaics of antiquity, Ménagerie Magnétique a selection of animals realised in Bakelite plastic created to be worn via magnets on clothing and Thinking about Monet, a compilation of hand-engraved steel sculptures created between 2015-2020 where light reflects in a dawn to dust cacophony of pinks, oranges and purples.

'Brush’s work is deeply rooted in the past and traditions yet helps us understand our contemporary world through the prism of perfection and contemplation,' notes Lise Macdonald, President of L’ École. An impressive book accompanies the show written by Olivia Brush and Becker with photographs by Carly Leigh Lapidus of his studio in different seasons, different lights and at different times of the day – as Monet might have appreciated it. Intimate portrayals of the work itself are photographed by Benjamin Chelly.

Established in 2012, L’ École with the support of Van Cleef & Arpels, to expand education around the jewellery arts, yet the relationship between Brush and the brand goes back further to the 1980’s when Philippe Arpels began collecting his paintings. In 2012 before an exhibition Brush had at the Museum of Arts and Design in New York, President and CEO of Van Cleef & Arpels, Nicolas Bos, visited Brush’s studio and from there, exhibitions in Paris, New York, Hong Kong and Tokyo followed. A synergy emerged which celebrated Brush’s singular boundary-pushing talent and which amplifies his voice today. Olivia Brush is philosophical. 'Daniel always felt he was writing visual poems – his mind, his voice, his breathing, his heartbeat. There were never any designs or pre-thinking. Never limitations.'

Daniel Brush – The Art of Light and Line runs from June 8^th – October 4^th, 2026, at L’ École School of Jewelry Arts

Bertrand Meylan, co-CEO of H Moser & Cie, concedes that initially the idea seemed like a crazy one. ‘We were contacted back in 2023 by a guy who had been in contact with Authentic Brands Group [which acquired Reebok in 2022], one of whose owners was into watches and wanted to do a collaboration,’ he recalls. ‘We just ignored that at first. I mean, what were they thinking of? But then we started to think about it…’

More specifically, Meylan started to think back 30 years or so to when one of his favourite pairs of trainers were his Reebok Pumps. And, as much as a collaboration between a high-end Swiss maker of avant-garde watches and a British-cum-American sneaker company – and not even one of the big two at that – seemed counter-intuitive, Meylan laughs that he 'started to feel nostalgic, and so started to think about some kind of angle that made any sense'.

The Pump, as Meylan stresses, was 'an iconic product'. Indeed, it was likely Reebok’s most groundbreaking design, allowing wearers to use a toy-like, half-basketball-shaped button on the tongue to hand-pump air into chambers inside the shoe, thus providing each foot (since no two are alike) with a more snug, custom fit. There was a button on the heel that worked as a release valve.

The idea was borrowed from a mechanism designed for a Raichle ski boot and then developed by Ellesse, which Reebok acquired in 1988. Several concepts were advanced, including a self-inflating model (later rejected for being too complicated, requiring the use of pressurised air canisters) and the successful hand-inflated one – based around a system co-designed with a medical device manufacturer that was expert in the making of inflatable blood pressure cuffs.

After some tweaks to the aesthetic (the first version was pretty ugly) and to manufacturing (thanks to a sewing error, half of the first production batch wouldn’t inflate), the Pump would launch to great fanfare, the most expensive sneaker yet commercially produced. By the end of 1990, it was calculated that, if the Reebok Pump alone was an athletic shoe brand, it would be the world’s fourth largest.

But how to translate the idea of an inflatable trainer to a watch? H. Moser & Cie initially considered something akin to an inflatable strap, but this struck the company as gimmicky. Instead, it took 18 months of R&D to adapt its automatic HMC 500 small seconds movement to come up with a way of using an anodised aluminium pusher – in orange, as was the inflator on Reebok Pumps – to ‘pump’ the watch’s winding mechanism. Each press of the pusher on the Streamliner Pump – as the watch has been named – transmits the energy to the barrel spring and activates a power reserve indicator.

'I’ve been wearing one for a while now and have to say that pumping it become habitual,' says Meylan – he compares it to a fidget toy. 'That’s important for a manual wind watch anyway, but we were also careful to design a movement that couldn’t be overwound. You can keep pushing the pusher even when the mechanism is fully wound. And you get used to pressing it when you’re a bit bored. That said, it is a more natural gesture to power a watch in the way that a conventional winding crown isn’t. Funnily enough, I remember playing with the pump button on my shoes all the time too.'

Meylan can revisit that feeling too: each of the Streamliner Pump watches – available in an edition 250 in matte black and 250 in white forged quartz fibre casing – comes with a matching, special edition, low-top pair of Reebok Pumps (Reebok has over-produced so customers should be able to get their right size, with any remaining pairs going to Moser staff and friends – and maybe ultimately into the hands of sneaker collectors).

The pump-action winding mechanism is both a curiosity and a delight. 'But I think that without the Reebok collaboration it wouldn’t have been anywhere near as cool as it is,' Meylan enthuses. 'The fact is that luxury [as much of the Swiss watch industry defines itself] doesn’t have to mean pretentious. And it’s important to remind ourselves of that.'

h-moser.com

For the director of Cartier high jewellery creation, Jacqueline Karache-Langane, the story of a piece begins with the stone. It is a philosophy that guides the new high jewellery collection, ‘Le Chœur des Pierres’, which unites gems, from intensely coloured Colombian emeralds, to uniquely shaped diamonds and weighty topazes.

The series is named after a play on words – chœur can mean a chorus of voices or, without the ‘h’, as cœur, refer to the heart – which reflects the multi-faceted nature of the jewellery itself. Necklaces and rings showcase the singular nature of the stones while also incorporating sculptural swirls of precious metals and vividly coloured materials.

The collection encompasses more than 125 pieces, requiring more than 85,000 hours of work. Familiar Cartier motifs are interspersed throughout, from the geometric structure of a row of diamond-studded pendants in the Olorra necklace to the Tutti Kanya necklace, an interpretation of the classic Tutti Frutti style, with an exceptional 30.33ct engraved Zambian emerald at its heart. In the Haryma necklace, a jewelled tiger skulks over five imperial topazes.

Classical motifs and stones, too, are given an avant-garde spin, demonstrated in the fluid lines of the Tellura necklace, where the unique shapes of 30 diamonds lead a design that appears to tremble on the neck of the wearer. In the Specula ring, triangular diamonds are paired with onyx for a modern take on the Toi & Moi style, while elsewhere, rare cognac-coloured diamonds sink into rings lined with brown diamond cabochons.

‘Each gemstone is an encounter, an alchemy that resonates with our vision and our quest for the Cartier ideal,’ says Karache-Langane. ‘The creation serves the stone, revealing its nuances, its brilliance, its sparkle and its inner vibration.’

cartier.com

Italian jewellery designer Francesca Villa brings a playful eclecticism to fine jewellery, drawing from vintage design elements and offbeat materials for a distinctive style. While in the past, Villa has reinterpreted heritage pieces, putting a spin on traditional cameos and emblazoning bespoke pet portraits onto gold rings. Now, she is setting her sights on the open road.

The On the Road capsule collection, inspired by the discovery of a vintage set of truck-shaped pins, translates the truck into brooches and pendants, cast in yellow gold and studded with precious stones. ‘The theme of travel has always been at the heart of my work,’ says Villa.

‘Here, travel is closely tied to the miles travelled, the encounters along the way, and the ever-changing landscapes experienced throughout the journey. When pop culture and jewellery meet, something unexpected happens. The former brings a sense of nostalgia and cultural memory, while high jewellery techniques transform them into lasting objects, giving new meaning and permanence to images that are often fleeting.’

francescavilla.it

This article appears in the June 2026 Travel Issue of Wallpaper*, available from 7 May in print on newsstands, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today

Following 2024's AP x KAWS Royal Oak Concept watch release, Audemars Piguet has announced a new collaboration with the founders of Tokyo-based streetwear and jewellery brand Ambush, Yoon Ahn and Verbal. The sublime engineering of this 38.55 mm version features the 72-hour Calibre 2982 and a flying tourbillon framed in red, limited to 150 pieces.

Born in 2002 as Audemars Piguet's experimental laboratory, the Royal Oak Concept has always existed outside convention. The Concept, with its angular case form, is a forward-leaning counterpoint to Gerald Genta's original, classical geometry. For its latest chapter, Audemars Piguet has collaborated with Yoon Ahn and Verbal on a technically accomplished watch, with a semi-skeletonised, architecturally layered dial and tourbillon at six o’clock.

A pop of red in the tourbillon cage is the only point of colour in the monochrome design, a signature hue of the Tokyo duo. 'Red has always been a powerful colour for us,' says Verbal, adding, 'while the tourbillon cage represents the heart of the watch, the force that keeps everything in motion. Red evokes the Earth’s core: the origin point, the source of energy and, ultimately, the beginning of how we measure time itself.'

The dial, revealing the inner workings of the Calibre 2892, sparkles in a polished black aventurine, a rare colour in this type of glass, with its metal fragments creating a delicate glitter from the smallest sliver of light.

Compared to previous incarnations of the Concept collection, this smaller size made its debut in 2024. With its fiercely faceted titanium case, it is strong despite its everyday, wearable size. Fans of the brand will recognise the crown and bolted-down bezel as timeless family traits, this time embellished on a slim 11.4mm matte titanium main case, which is fitted with an interchangeable black rubber strap.

The Royal Oak Flying Tourbillon is a key part of Audemars Piguet CEO Ilaria Resta's refresh at the company, since she took on the role at the start of 2024. Like the standard-bearing Genta creation that is its forebear, it sets the standard for continuing collaborations in art, fashion and design.

audemarspiguet.com

In the watch industry the more typical collaboration is with the worlds of Formula One, yachting, tennis or golf, highly regarded for their technical accomplishment or, as is often the case, for their monied, elitist image. So perhaps it’s no wonder that one of Tissot’s latest models stands out for being tied to cycling: its Pinarello Special Edition has been developed in conjunction with the Italian racing bicycle-maker of the same name.

There are crossovers between the two brands: the watch is made from the same forged carbon used by Pinarello for its frames, for example. There are more poetic nods too: the unusual and distinctive 10 o’clock crown position echoes Pinarello’s signature aerodynamic Fork Flap fin design, the seconds hand uses the same blue paint as Pinarello bikes, while the grainy grey dial is a reminder of the tarmac with which riders normally don’t wish to get too well acquainted.

But, regardless, Sylvain Dolla, Tissot’s CEO, argues that the cycling world is one that has been largely overlooked by watchmakers. 'There are two billion people who cycle, so if you [connect with] just a fraction of that, that’s a good target group to be in,' he laughs. 'Cycling is clearly a sport that’s been developing very well over recent years and has a broad reach. But it’s also a sport in which [as with some watchmaking] engineering performance is extreme and technical accomplishment is impressive.'

Authenticity helps too, of course. Tissot, which has been rewarding winning cyclists with a celebratory watch since the 1960s, is the official timekeeper of the timekeeping nightmare that is the Tour de France - it will release a special edition watch to mark this relationship in June. T must provide and manage the equipment that, as happened in a 2017 photo finish, can separate two riders by just 3/10,000th of a second.

Tissot has also been official timekeeper of the Giro D’Italia, these duties passing to Tudor in 2023 – last year the brand, which sponsors a pro cycling team, launched a limited edition chronograph with pink detailing, in homage to the winner of the Italian road race earning the distinction of wearing the maglia rosa, or the pink jersey. Breitling also sponsors a cycling team, as does Richard Mille, with both brands supplying riders with one of their off-the-shelf models.

Indeed, that the association between watches and cycling remains tentative may be down to the fact that, unlike chronometers and Formula One, or regatta watches and race sailing, there’s no clear functional use for a watch in cycling, for all that it would prove a tough testing ground for lightness, durability and so on. Not all riders wear a high-end watch, and those that do tend to be due to sponsorship deals. As Dolla jokes, 'I’m into boxing and I’m not sure we can come up with watch for that either.'

But perhaps the tide is slowly turning, though with the emphasis on cycling’s second string as a conduit for lifestyle rather than its competition or technical achievements - as Bremont identified through its MBIII watch collaboration with cycling-meets-style brand Rapha in 2022. “A lot of the appeal of cycling is in the aesthetics,” argues Giovanni Moro, co-founder of Unimatic, which has a special edition tool watch - with its proprietary shock resistant quartz movement in its first titanium case - designed in collaboration with ‘cool’ Australian cycling apparel company MAPP. It’s MAPP’s first watch.

'There are synergies between watches and cycling - they both face the technical challenge of making what is essentially a very simple object, and to that end there’s the exploration of manufacturing techniques, exploring new materials and so on,' he adds. 'But as a brand MAPP is also very fashion and lifestyle-oriented with its products. Stylistically it’s important that someone could like the watch and the MAPP aesthetic regardless of their appreciation for the brand or for cycling. I’m not particularly into cycling but appreciate the prestige around [elements of that world].'

Indeed, Unimatic is now in discussions regarding a collaboration watch with an Italian bicycle brand. While Moro can’t name it at this stage, he notes how racing bicycles, like watches, can be luxury objects too. He wouldn’t want to ride one of this brand’s bikes, he says, but he’d love one to hang on his office wall.

‘I always knew one day I wanted to create a collection inspired by games, connecting Chanel and the watch world,’ says Arnaud Chastaingt, director of Chanel’s watch creation studio. ‘Chess is a traditional game, and there is a connection with the graphic world of Chanel – in the duality of the black and white, and also the fact that the objects are very essential. There’s no ornamentation. It’s like when you have a domino on the table, you quickly understand how to use it. There’s a minimalist simplification and functionality.’

The French house’s one-of-a-kind chess set draws on its high jewellery and watchmaking acumen, crafting a ceramic chessboard, in deep black and pearly white, that was two years in the making. It is populated with a cast of sculpted 18k white gold figures studded with diamonds, all familiar characters in Chanel’s universe. And how does it tell the time? In the base of the figure of the queen – represented, naturally, by Gabrielle ‘Coco’ Chanel – is concealed a clock. A loop on the top means that she can also be hung on a white gold chain set with diamonds and onyx, which is secreted away in the chessboard drawer. In a neatly playful twist, the winner can, quite literally, wear time.

‘This chessboard is a metaphor for Chanel time,’ Chastaingt adds. ‘I played chess when I was young, and I think it helped to develop my imagination. For me, chess is like a little theatre. You play and you understand the power of the different elements. It offers you the opportunity to reflect. There are different actors, and they all have a different power.’

We recognise the actors here – Gabrielle Chanel’s favourite motifs, which often pop up across watches and jewellery. The king is a lion, the knight is Chanel’s distinctive quilted motif, the bishop a couture bust and the rook the Vendôme column, which stands outside Chanel’s Paris boutique. Each piece epitomises a sharp goldsmithing ability, and is shaped using the traditional lost-wax casting technique from bespoke moulds before being sandblasted, polished, rhodium-plated and set with diamonds

‘It is interesting for me that the spirit of Gabrielle Chanel is a guardian of time here,’ says Chastaingt. ‘You play chess, discover a watch under the queen, and the winner can wear her. The story doesn’t finish at the end of the game. In all nice stories, you have a secret.'

chanel.com

This article appears in the June 2026 Issue of Wallpaper*, available from 7 May in print on newsstands, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today

Watch out, Carnaby Street! In March 2022, Swatch’s first collaboration with Omega, the MoonSwatch, saw police called to restore order after Swatch’s Carnaby Street, London store was mobbed on opening. The ‘Bioceramic’ Swatch version of Omega’s Speedmaster, powered by a robot-built Sistem51 automatic movement, was an instant sell-out globally.

Some two million examples have been sold since, and the collaboration was followed up by a partnership with Blancpain. The Scuba Fifty Fathoms, released the following year, was a slower-burning success. Both watches have proved fun to wear – Swatch exudes horological credibility without being too serious.

So when Swatch started to tease a new collaboration on Instagram and TikTok just over a week ago, and the typography was unmistakably Audemars Piguet Royal Oak, interest was more than piqued. The word ‘Pop’ (the oversized Swatch from the 1980s that you could pop into different straps) in the teaser had most people assuming some version of the Royal Oak Overseas, and possibly a pocket watch element. They were half right.

Going on sale on 16 May 2026, the Royal Pop is a sideways advance on the previous collaborations – this is not a plastic Royal Oak. It’s inspired by Genta’s design language for the Royal Oak but is not a copy, bringing it to younger generations in a surprising format, the world of charms and wearable accessories, 'a complete new way to wear time' as Swatch put it.

Royal Pop is a transformable pocket watch that can be worn around the neck, clipped onto bags, displayed as a desk clock (Swatch will offer desk stands) or carried in your pocket. Notably there are no wrist straps on sale as yet, though anyone with access to a 3D printer can create their own instantly.

The design cues are unmistakably Royal Oak, from the octagonal bezel and screws to the geometric Petite Tapisserie pattern on the dial and the typography. The execution, however, is all Swatch, in terms of bright colours and cutesy multilingual names for the eight variations. Six are time-only, and two have a small-seconds subdial. They also vary by crown (the time-only designs are Lépine-style, with the crown at 12, and the small-seconds are Savonette, with the crown at 3).

The format means that automatic winding is less useful, so Swatch has gone for a hand-wound version of Sistem51, with the state of wind being visible through openings in the spring barrel on the reverse – if you can see the grey spring coils, it’s time to wind.

The clever thing is that the watches work as designs in themselves. They are a way of bringing new audiences to watchmaking (always the point of Swatch), all without detracting from the Royal Oak’s status as a grail watch.

Royal Pop prices are £335 for the time-only models and £350 for the small seconds versions. Launching from selected swatch stores on 16 May and available to pre-order at swatch.com

Guy Blaskey concedes that not everyone thought the name he gave his watch brand – Detrash, which launched in 2024 in Dorset, UK – was a good idea. 'I’d get a lot of hate online: Why do you put ‘trash’ on the dial?”’ he recalls. 'But I wanted to wear the brand’s commitment to sustainability on its sleeve, and to spark conversations about it.'

Indeed, Gotham’s Vigilante 2, the new model from Detrash, comes with a case made of 80 per cent recycled steel (as high a percentage as is possible for surgical-grade steel at present) and a strap made from recycled ocean plastics, swappable with another made from beer waste. A percentage of each sale goes to environmental charities. Detrash is now planning a dial made from Surfite, an upcycled material made from hardened layers of resin by-product from surfboard manufacturing.

'The demography of the watch customer is, broadly, getting older, and if the industry is to attract younger people, it has to care about sustainability,' says Blaskey, previously an entrepreneur in the FMCG (fast-moving consumer goods) market. 'That’s more interesting to a lot of consumers than, say, its power reserve. In fact, I think it’s offensive that so many watches are so expensive and not more sustainable.'

Certainly, while some brands at the higher end of the market have dabbled with sustainable materials – Panerai, Oris, Chopard, Ulysee Nardin, among others – Blaskey argues that in watches, the sustainability drive tends to be at the more affordable end: Detrash watches retail for under £400. Yet Gotham’s Vigilante 2 also comes with a Japanese automatic movement, sapphire crystal glass, a ceramic bezel and 200m of water-resistance.

Likewise, the spec of California-based watch brand The Sacred Crafts’ Adam Greener diver – with a bronze case made from reclaimed boat propellers and a dial in a proprietary ‘Seaglass’ material made using recycled fishing nets – also has a 300ATM water-resistance (equivalent to the pressure at a depth of 3,000m), an ETA automatic movement and a 42-hour power reserve. The challenge, says The Sacred Crafts’ founder Matt Harkins, is ‘what can be done in this [sustainable] way without losing the aesthetics that collectors are looking for in a watch’.

The spec is critical, explains Zacharias Dahl, CEO of Swedish sustainable watch brand Triwa (a contraction of ‘Transforming the Industry of Watches’), which has recently launched its £215 Koster GMT model with a dial handmade from recycled plastic composite, but also with an automatic movement, 20ATM water-resistance, and so on. Sustainable watches have to offer a much higher spec [for the price], in part, says Dahl, because of assumptions about sustainable materials.

'The more luxury end of watchmaking still tends to be driven by brand status, and status doesn’t yet align with sustainable materials,' Dahl suggests. 'Possibly, that business model is too ingrained [to depart from traditional materials]. But new brands have to find a clear angle to drive growth – and increasingly that’s sustainability. Our customers are turning to sustainable watches as a form of rebellion [against watch industry norms].'

According to Stephane Waser, CEO of prestige brand Maurice Lacroix – which caused a stir by launching its Aikon Tide watch, made from plastic bottles recovered from the seas – the broader industry is moving towards sustainable materials, if maybe not being sufficiently vocal about it. 'There’s a certain image to plastic, yet carbon fibre is seen as a technical performance material, so often [it’s] a question of how materials are packaged,' he says. He cites a shift from animal-derived straps to rubber ones, from mined diamonds to lab-grown ones.

'The industry is already doing a lot towards sustainability, but doesn’t speak much about it, perhaps because it doesn’t seem to support sales,' Waser adds. 'In the end, the industry has to satisfy customer needs. And the question is, who do you want to speak to? It’s younger generations who are paying attention to [ecological impact].’

Perhaps that’s why it’s not only more affordable brands, but also younger brands that are building a track record in foregrounding sustainability, including in the more prestige market. Late in 2025, ID Genève, for example – which was founded in 2020 and put on firmer financial footing in 2023, thanks to a CHF2m (£1.9m) buy-in from investors including Leonardo DiCaprio – launched its Circular S Eclipse. Its case is made from 100 per cent reprocessed, low-carbon stainless steel – made using a solar furnace to melt down surplus steel scraps. The strap is made from recycled grape residue from a Châteauneuf-du-Pape estate. It’s also a £4,000-plus watch, with others in the brand’s collection priced at £8000-plus.

'Many of the more established luxury watch brands were born into another context, but we were launched just a few years ago and had to deal with the reality of that time – which is much more mindful of sustainability,' says ID Genève’s CEO Nicolas Freudiger. 'People still often assume there’s some trade-off on quality in sustainable materials, [so] right now it’s a question of speaking to a more avant-garde customer. But in time, the sustainability narrative will become [the most important one] for the luxury industry.'

detrash.com

'The connection I have with pearls keeps changing,' Melanie Georgacopoulos shares as she prepares to launch Eclipse, her first high jewellery collection. Georgacopoulos’ name has become synonymous with the renaissance of pearl jewellery, reimagining a gemstone that had previously been viewed as a dated proposition, usually inherited as a family heirloom, into modern creations that upend notions of what is not only possible with pearls, but also enduringly appealing.

Georgacopoulos was born and raised in Greece to a Greek father and French mother, where frequent trips to ancient archaeological sites and monuments were balanced by holidays in France where she first encountered the works of Les Lalanne and Lalique. 'In hindsight I would say the best thing about my childhood was that I was exposed to many things.'

This eclectic visual diet, coupled with teenage experimentation in making her own jewellery, led her to hone her creativity. Firstly, at the Mokume School of Jewellery in Athens, followed by a degree in sculpture from the Edinburgh College of Art, pursued because she felt 'frustrated by just making small things all the time [so] I broadened my horizons with knowledge', and onwards to a masters in jewellery design at the Royal College of Art, where her graduate show birthed her first of many iconic designs using pearls, the Sliced Necklace.

'I think at the beginning I was very intrigued [by pearls]. It was an opaque material, and you don’t know what is in it. And the first response to that, with my sculpture background, was to just take one and cut it and see what is inside…the moment I cut one up, I thought how much can I push this idea of cutting them and turning them into something wearable.' The Sliced collection was the beginning of her lauded collaboration with Japanese heritage house Tasaki.

In the interim years since founding her own maison in 2010, Georgacopoulos has drawn upon her vast knowledge of pearls, coupled with a desire to not only surprise herself but also her clients. 'I try to work as intuitively as possible… my focus is not on the value of the materials. I don’t start by saying this is ‘x amounts of carats of pearls or diamonds’, I go more for the aesthetic of the pearl and the size I need for the design.'

In creating Eclipse, Georgacopoulos commenced with a thesis based on both social and cultural observations and a desire to design a collection that gave her the opportunity to incorporate hard stones in her creations; principally Onyx and Chalcedony as well as diamonds. As the collection’s name implies, Eclipse is both monochromatic in hue and also informed by movement and transformation, much like the celestial phenomenon itself.

'I feel like we are either black or white and the grey zone is diminishing politically and socially,' Georgacopoulos notes. This observation finds itself in necklaces and bracelets where pearls are held in custom-carved loops of onyx, resulting in a ‘chain’ effect and offering an invitation to experience both a chain-link jewellery piece like no other and to ponder on the strength and beauty found in unity rather than division. A single cast silver cuff, plated with black ruthenium with pearls applied between the metal, is another piece with meta-meanings. A substantive statement, possessing a gentle echo to antiquity, where jewellery worn as armour was readily embraced. Georgacopoulos remarks the cuff 'is something a warrior would wear' or in a modern setting, someone wanting to imbue their adornment with a readying of their inner strength for the day ahead.

Eclipse marks an evolution, that while still centring pearls seeks to present different expressions of their possibilities in a jewellery setting. 'Somehow over the years, my work has become more autobiographical,' Georgacopoulos reflects. Yet in her candor she has attracted a cadre of admirers and collectors drawn to collections that embrace multiple themes, expand conversations on materiality and are a harmonious balance of the conceptual and covetable.

melaniegeorgacopoulos.com

‘Dance, as an art form, is very diverse, with a lot of different influences,’ says Serge Laurent, Van Cleef & Arpels’ director of dance and culture programmes. ‘The main issue is managing the relations with the audience. When you are a curator, you are making a mediation between artists and audiences.’

This relationship is key to the rich programme of the Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels festival, which is held across the world, from New York to London, Hong Kong, Seoul and Kyoto. It is a natural initiative for Van Cleef & Arpels, which continues to build on strong foundations in dance that were first established in the 1920s. They were later reinforced in the 1940s, after Claude Arpels friendship with choreographer George Balanchine led to Balanchine's ballet Jewels, first performed in New York in 1967.

It is a history which continues to be relevant. This year, the Second Edition of the Dance Reflections Festival in New York encompassed 16 shows across nine venues across the city, presenting a considered blend of contemporary works. ‘It's very important to be eclectic, because as a curator, I don't want to tell you who or what is the art of today,’ Laurent adds. ‘An artwork exists with the eyes of the audience. People may feel uncomfortable because they think it’s not for them, but this festival is an invitation to live an experience, and discover new ways of creating.’

The New York Dance Reflections festival intertwined these influences into a blend of classic and contemporary works. One particular highlight, Mycelium, performed by the Lyon Opera Ballet, encompasses this pioneering spirit. ‘Mycelium has been a very special piece for the company,’ says Cedric Andrieux of Ballet de Lyon. ‘When it was created in 2023, it was the first time that [Greek choreographer] Christos Papadopoulos was working with dancers outside of his company. It has become one of our signatures over the past three years. It's something that we've been able to tour all over the world, and we’ve been very happy about how the audience responds. It's a radical piece, but also very powerful and accessible. It doesn’t keep the audience away, it draws them in.’

For Benjamin Millepied, who presented two pieces with LA Dance Project, Reflections: a triptych, and Romeo & Juliet suite, the festival is a chance to introduce classic works to a new audience. ‘My work is so related to music, and the idea to have access to this level of composers, conductors, musicians and acoustics is something that I absolutely love,’ he says. ‘Without the support of Van Cleef & Arpels, nothing like this would have been possible over the last 12 years. It's incredibly fortunate that we have this vision by Nicolas [Bos, CEO of Richemont] and the vision of Serge, that is incredibly sincere and passionate and real, to the extent that we're all here today. It always takes one person to make a difference, and that's the beauty of it.’

The next festival performance – Colossus by Stephanie Lake – will take place in June at London’s Southbank Centre, dancereflections-vancleefarpels.com

This article appears in the June 2026 Issue of Wallpaper*, available from 7 May in print on newsstands, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today

The J12 was the star of Chanel’s show at Watches & Wonders earlier this month, appearing in a range of guises, from dinky 28mm white or black ceramic through to a welcome reprise of the Superlegerra. The design, by Chanel’s artistic director at the time, Jacques Helleu, caused a sensation when it debuted in 2000 as a glamorous, feminine-leaning watch. Technically advanced, it was just as sporty as all but the more extreme offerings from the likes of Omega, Rolex and TAG Heuer.

Rather than being dismissed as just another ‘fashion watch’, the J12 was a game-changer within the industry, reminding makers that sports watches didn’t have to ooze testosterone. It laid the ground for the revival of the Gérald Genta sports-luxe designs from the Seventies, which followed. Out in the real world, it sold particularly well to the women who were not content with the mother-of-pearl dialled dress watch designs that were most brands’ idea of a ‘ladies' watch.'

A quarter of a century later, and Chanel has its own manufacture, a share in the movement maker Kenissi (where Tudor is its partner) and close ties with high-end movement suppliers such as Romain Gauthier – yet the real proof of the J12’s design quality is in how little it’s changed. Even when the director of the Chanel Watchmaking Creation Studio, Arnaud Chastaingt, did redesign the watch in 2019, primarily to accommodate a new movement, he ended up changing almost nothing – the crown was changed, the bezel is flatter and the dial typography is a little sharper – even though 70% of the components were new.

While the J12 easily accommodates changes in size and format – from the new 28mm to the 42mm Golden Black and Superleggera to the fully set treatment given to the Tourbillon model – the most attention at Watches & Wonders rightly went to the Midnight Blue 33mm and 38mm designs. A little less shiny than the white and black designs, the new colour seems to fit the J12 perfectly.

chanel.com

Long-lasting watch design strikes a harmonious balance between form and function, a delicate harmony epitomised in a recent cohort of watch releases.

From Vacheron Constantin’s Historiques American 1921 watch, which offsets a clean dial with a richly coloured strap, to Omega’s discreet platinum Constellation Observatory watch, tone is muted throughout.

For TAG Heuer, texture reigns on a Carrera chronograph with a purple sunray brushed dial. Texture, too, is interpreted in icy blue in Montblanc’s Iced Sea Automatic Date 0 Oxygen watch in stainless steel.

Elsewhere, the Richard Mille RM 72-01 Automatic Lifestyle flyback chronograph sits at the intersection of technicality and legibility, while the tiger iron dial on the Rolex GMT-Master II watch makes for a desirable contrast.

For the Tank Louis Cartier and Tudor Black Bay 54, minimalism reigns, updated in contemporary colour.

Meanwhile, subtle interplays on the dial, seen on the IWC Ingenieur Automatic 42 and the Patek Philippe Calatrava 6007G-011 watches, will appeal to those looking for a more subtle embellishment.

This article appears in the May 2026 Issue of Wallpaper*, available in print on newsstands, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today

In 1845, New York jeweller Tiffany & Co. published The Blue Book, a stylish catalogue featuring some of the world’s most precious stones. Over the decades – and through the acquiring of incredible gems, translated into jewels by acclaimed designers – the concept has become a modern showcase of today’s high jewellery collections.

A celebration of Tiffany & Co. design motifs has stayed consistent throughout, intertwined through the new Hidden Garden collection. Bold and bright pieces nod to designer Jean Schlumberger, in flora and fauna drawn in rainbows of colourful stones.

In The Bee piece, Schlumberger’s Two Bees ring inspires oval diamonds which sink into yellow gold honeycombs. A necklace is the reference for The Monarch, which sees a butterfly hiding in platinum foliage, while The Parrot’s blue and purple sapphires and feather motifs pay eclectic tribute to parrot brooches from the sixties.

Elsewhere, buds in unenhanced Zambian emeralds and diamonds nod to Schlumberger’s historical floral motif, while Palm’s sensual twists of leaves, from which peek unenhanced oval rubies from Mozambique, underline the gemology authority at the heart of the jewellery house.

‘Blue Book 2026: Hidden Garden reflects our continued commitment to creativity, craft and the highest standards of gemology,’ says Anthony Ledru, chief executive officer, Tiffany & Co. ‘This collection - one of Tiffany & Co.’s most important traditions for over a century - honours the legacy of Jean Schlumberger while demonstrating how we continue to evolve it for today’s high jewellery client. Under Nathalie Verdeille’s creative leadership, and in close collaboration with our gemologists and artisans, we are pushing the boundaries of design and technical excellence.’

tiffany.co.uk

‘For me, this book shows how wide Eddie’s influence has spread and the culture of grills at large,’ says film director Lyle Lindgren, speaking on the publication of Mouth Full of Golds Re(Edition). ‘This is an accessory that has transcended cities, musical genres and art forms.’

The book is an illustrated history of Eddie Plein, who spearheaded a golden era of dentistry. The music, fashion and photography industries were seduced by Plein’s grills, loved by many, including Michèle Lamy, Goldie, Mike Tyson and Dolly Cohen.

Quickly, Plein’s grills transcended dentistry, coming to define a significant cultural moment in the history of hip-hop. ‘It was hard to see the significance,’ Plein says now. ‘You’re living it, it was just business. We had a ball out there in all of these different cities, but it was still a hustle; we were trying to make ends meet. Of course, we knew we were making a mark, we were at the top in NYC and then we did it again in Atlanta; guys like Luda, Big Boi all sneaking in through the back at the shop. We were right there when it was popping. But the bigger mark on culture, that didn’t become apparent till much later – much much later – when you could see all these guys making teeth across the world on things like Instagram. It really dawned on me, like wow! This thing of ours really spread around the world.’

The book, an updated version of the original, which was self-published in 2021, is accompanied by a feature-length documentary that will be viewable at soon-to-be-announced screenings around the world. Both bring together the voices that helped define the movement, from A$AP Ferg and A$AP Rocky to Marc Jacobs and Janette Beckman.

‘I think the customisable element has always made this an interesting medium for people to express themselves, both the customers and the grillmakers,’ says Lindgren on the mass appeal. ‘It gives people the chance to make something unique to their smile, to their style and taste. And for the grillmakers, it’s a miniature form of sculpture that comes with its own set of challenges and keeps evolving. And so with all of this mind, it was only natural to end up with such a wide range of contributors and perspectives.’

Plein adds: ‘You have to remember I have waxed thousands of teeth, from New York, Alabama, Connecticut, Memphis to Atlanta. My brother Lando was doing the same in Miami and still is; we were just two of many. Now you have people in London, Tokyo, Paris, all creating, for many many different people. In my day, I had everyone from the hustlers to the kids from the historical Black colleges like Morehouse, to Allen Iverson and MF DOOM (but I didn’t know it was him). You just never knew who was gonna come through the door.’

ideanow.online

In the mid-19th century, Cartier dipped its toe into horology, establishing a technically accomplished and creative mastery of the medium, honed throughout the subsequent decades. It is a commitment to craft that the maison is now keen to mark, announcing a new education-programme partnership with The King’s Foundation that looks to nurture and preserve these skills.

The King's Foundation and Cartier: Decorative Métiers d'Art in Watchmaking shifts the focus to the next generation in an acknowledgement of the importance of collaboration. The bursary-funded partnership, encompassing five months of formal training and two months of project work, will zone in on fields integral to Cartier’s savoir-faire, including specialist techniques like champlevé, grisaille and marquetry.

‘At The King’s Foundation, we are passionate about protecting traditional crafts and we are delighted to be partnering with Cartier – who share this passion – on this exciting new education programme,’ says Jacqueline Farrell, executive director of education at The King’s Foundation. ‘This course will give students a rare opportunity to learn the highly specialised skills involved in the decorative arts for watchmaking. By nurturing the next generation of makers in two extraordinary settings, in Scotland and Switzerland, we hope to ensure that these remarkable skills are preserved and developed for years to come.’

The fellowship is open to UK-based watchmaking and jewellery graduates, as well as designers who are in the first three years of launching their business. While studying at The King’s Foundation in Scotland, students will be based on site at Dumfries House, while residentials will be held at Cartier’s Maison des Métiers d’Art in Switzerland.

For Cartier, holding the warrant of Jewellers and Watchmakers to His Majesty The King, the partnership is a natural one, and a fitting accompaniment to the annual competition, launched almost three decades ago, the Cartier Prize for Watchmaking Talents of Tomorrow.

‘We are delighted to partner with The King’s Foundation on this important new fellowship programme,’ says Louis Ferla, president and CEO of Cartier. ‘Support for creative talents in watchmaking and the métiers d’art is crucial to ensure these ancestral skills are transmitted to the next generation, where they can continue to share their singular beauty. This commitment reaffirms the maison’s longstanding dedication to the shared human adventure of preserving, developing and, of course, celebrating these rare and traditional crafts.’

Applications will open in spring 2026, with the first cohort presenting their projects in a final exhibition in spring 2027. Applicants can apply for the course from 27 April via The King’s Foundation website

Jewellery brand Messika enters a new chapter with the recently released ‘Moderniste’ collection. Since founding the brand 20 years ago, Valérie Messika has pioneered the concept of ‘diamonds in motion’ – whereby the stones actually move within a piece of jewellery. Now, ‘Moderniste’ signals a shift towards a language of contrasts. Powerful yet precise, luminous yet irreverent, opposites meet in deliberate balance. Wallpaper* joined the maison in London to celebrate a new design direction – one that places architectural thinking and gold at the forefront of Messika’s creative identity.

At the heart of the collection is a decisive move away from diamonds as the sole focal point. Instead, gold – rendered in yellow, white, and rose – becomes a sculptural medium. Pieces are conceived as wearable forms rather than traditional jewellery, with volume, structure, and the play of light taking precedence over ornament. Polished, brushed, and pavé surfaces interact dynamically, allowing each design to shift in tone and intensity depending on how it is worn.

Drawing on the principles of modernist architecture, the collection references the clarity and restraint of figures such as Le Corbusier and Eileen Gray. Clean lines, geometric precision, and balanced proportions define the silhouettes, while a recurring dialogue between circle and square introduces a sense of tension. This ‘paradox’ extends beyond form, suggesting a union of masculine and feminine energies – strength and fluidity held within a single gesture. Subtle asymmetrical pyramids appear throughout, echoing the maison’s emblematic ‘diamonds in motion’, now translated into a more structural vocabulary.

The range spans rings, earrings, sculptural necklaces – including torque and tie styles – and a defining bangle that anchors the collection. Each piece functions as both adornment and object, designed to be experienced in three dimensions.

The event with Wallpaper*, held in an intimate setting overlooking Kensington Gardens, mirrored this sensibility. Guests were invited into a space where light, reflection, and materiality took precedence, with a dedicated styling area for guests to try on key pieces from the collection. Wallpaper* watches & jewellery editor Hannah Silver shared the floor with Valérie Messika to discuss the nuances of the collection, with a sneak peek at what potential future collaborations could look like.

Developed with creative director Sybille de Saint Louvent, the accompanying campaign explores the intersection of artificial intelligence, material innovation and form. Photographed by Ezra Petronio and starring former Wallpaper* cover star Julianne Moore, the imagery positions each piece as an architectural artefact – ‘beyond adornment’, and intentionally inclusive in its appeal.

The ‘Moderniste’ collection is available now, with prices ranging from £1,680 to £42,300.

messika.com/uk_en

Van Cleef & Arpels looks to poetic inspirations at Watches and Wonders 2026, blurring the lines between watches and jewellery in a host of new releases. Watches, in aventurine glass and embossed enamel, in moonlight and retrograde minutes, bring a romantic spin to traditional time-telling.

Midnight Jour Nuit Phase de Lune

The moon has been a reference point for Van Cleef & Arpels since 1929, when the maison first fitted a pocket watch with a moonphase complication. Nearly a century on, the Midnight Jour Nuit Phase de Lune brings that fascination to a 42mm white gold case, where two complications operate in layered concert. There is an evocative 24-hour Jour/Nuit, with a disc animating the passage of sun and moon, and a second disc completing one rotation every 29 hours, 16 minutes and 27 seconds. For the non-astronomers out there, this tracks the moon’s actual 29.5-day cycle with the precision of a true astronomical complication.

The sky itself is rendered in black Murano aventurine glass, a departure from its usual navy blue lustre. It has been developed by Van Cleef & Arpels’ Innovation Department to achieve a depth of colour and a bronze-toned shimmer that captures the quality of a clear night. A guilloché golden sun and a white mother-of-pearl moon take turns emerging from, and retreating behind, a guilloché mother-of-pearl horizon, painted in a gradient from black to white. When the moon is hidden below that horizon, a button on the case rim triggers an on-demand animation: the dial rotates 360 degrees over approximately ten seconds, revealing the lunar phase in its current state against a field of acrylic-traced stars.

The movement took four years of development at Van Cleef & Arpels’ Watchmaking Workshops in Geneva, and required a particular engineering solution, as Rainer Bernard, watchmaking research and development director, explains: ‘The key challenge lay in developing the on-demand animation. To avoid any inaccuracy in the moon phase, we had to take account of the changes that must occur during the course of the animation, since the discs are performing an additional full rotation.’ The caseback continues the narrative: an engraving evokes the moon’s topography in white gold, while the sapphire crystal over the oscillating weight features a miniature enamel rendering of the Earth, surrounded by miniature painted planets on a guilloché ground.

Midnight Heure d’ici & Heure d’ailleurs

Where the Jour Nuit Phase de Lune looks upward, the Midnight Heure d’ici & Heure d’ailleurs turns its attention to the horizontal plane of the globe. The 38mm rose gold Midnight case houses a fully redeveloped automatic movement with a 65-hour power reserve, displaying jumping hours alongside retrograde minutes for two simultaneous time zones. The Heure d’ici appears in the upper window; the Heure d’ailleurs in the lower. Two sector gears synchronise both discs and the retrograde minute hand, so that at the moment the hand sweeps back from 60 to zero, both hour displays jump forward together in deceptive simplicity.

The dial was created by Van Cleef & Arpels’ enamel workshop in Geneva, after artisans spent months arriving at a colour that captures a particular optical phenomenon: the dichroism of precious stones such as rubies, which appear warm or cool depending on the light that falls on them. The result is an amber-brown enamel whose nuances shift between warm and cold accents across the day, applied over a mirror-polished gold ground that amplifies reflections within the material. Stunning, evocative and setting a high bar for VC&A watchmaking in 2026 and beyond.

vancleefarpels.com

TAG Heuer’s Watches and Wonders 2026 offering is all about Monaco, with two distinct takes on the most recognisable square chronograph. While the Monaco Chronograph is ‘rearchitected’ in titanium for wider reach, the Monaco Evergraph is built around TAG Heuer’s thirst for innovation and features a chronograph mechanism with a long list of innovative tech to unpack.

Talking to TAG Heuer’s heritage director Nicolas Biebuyck, the brand's goals are made clear, as is the importance of these two parallel Monaco ranges. 'They're both in titanium,' Biebuyck says of the new Monacos, 'but when you look further at the details, the movement is the standout factor.' He presents both watches as a major development for the brand, especially the skeletonised Evergraph version. 'This joint development with [Swiss manufacture] Vaucher is, for me, the most important chronograph movement in the history of watchmaking. It's the first time that anyone has completely rethought what the chronograph mechanism should be, much like Rolex achieved with Dinapulse last year for an industrial escapement.'

Monaco Chronograph

The mainstay Monaco gets its most thorough redesign since the 1997 relaunch, returning to the geometry of the original 1969 ‘reference 1133’ for proportions and detail language. But its vintage-infused looks, complete with motorsport connotations, are housed in a new 39mm grade-five titanium case. It has reinforced the model’s angular edges, featuring a more genuinely square sapphire crystal, and a caseback with a smaller domed centre section that echoes the ergonomic logic of the original.

The new in-house Calibre TH20-11 is a bi-compax layout with counters at 3 and 9, a date at 6, and takes its name directly from the Calibre 11 it descends from. The new calibre delivers an 80-hour power reserve with a five-year warranty, coming in three versions: McQueen blue, British Racing Green, and a black dial in a titanium and 18ct rose gold two-tone case.

Monaco Evergraph

The Evergraph is TAG Heuer’s most technically ambitious watch in years. At its core is the Calibre TH80-00, developed with Vaucher Manufacture Fleurier and built around a chronograph mechanism that meets the requirements. Echoing Biebuyck’s words on its importance, it took five years to develop at the TAG Heuer LAB. The main talking point is replacing the traditional levers and springs of start, stop, and reset with two flexible bistable components produced via LIGA technology.

The result is a chronograph with a distinct skeletonised visage, whose actuation degrades neither in feel nor accuracy over time: the ten-thousandth press delivers the same response as the first. An inverted movement construction puts the barrel, gear train, and TH-Carbonspring escapement on show through the transparent dial, with subsidiary dials at 3 and 9 creating a strict bilateral symmetry within the 40mm titanium square case. There are two versions: natural grade-five titanium with blue accents referencing the 1133B, and black DLC-coated titanium with red accents drawn from TAG Heuer’s motorsport palette.

tagheuer.com

Since announcing a partnership with the Louvre in 2019, Vacheron Constantin has released a limited-edition series of exquisitely produced watches inspired by the museum’s treasures. Now, the maison has unveiled the second of the Great Civilisations series, created in conjunction with the Louvre, with four models limited to 15 pieces each translating cultural symbols into horological form.

Vacheron Constantin looked to the Louvre’s Ancient Egypt, Assyrian Empire, Ancient Greece, and Imperial Rome collections to create these new watches. Explains Sandrine Donguy, product and innovation director at Vacheron Constantin: ‘These periods experienced extraordinary territorial expansion and significant cultural and artistic influence, aligning with the maison's spirit of exploration, innovation and creativity. The collaboration with the Louvre also reflects a shared commitment to conserving, preserving, and transmitting arts and traditional craftsmanship, celebrating the splendours of the past.’

The watches, three years in the making, pay tribute to four ancient sculptures – the Buste d’Akhénaton, the Lamassu de Sargon II, Athéna de Velletri, and Le Tibre from the Iseum Campense temple. The watches are miniature works of art, intertwining traditional techniques with precious materials and accomplished artistry. Throughout, the complexity of the dials unites nine decorative crafts.

‘A significant artistic challenge was the glyptic work on natural stone, using limestone, sandstone and marble of the same types and origins as the original works, a first for the maison,’ Donguy adds. ‘Additionally, combining various decorative crafts and juxtaposing components produced with distinct techniques on the dial demanded micron-level precision to avoid errors and ensure perfect calibration on a single complex dial composed of three to four layers.’

For Olivier Gabet, general curator of heritage and director of the Département des Objets d'art at the Louvre, the ongoing collaboration speaks to the cultural status of both the museum and the maison. ‘As a reflection of the quest for beauty which echoes humanity, the Louvre is the best place to celebrate invention and creativity, art, design and craft. The Louvre and Vacheron Constantin have nurtured a very special relationship of mutual respect, with the Louvre showing once again that the museum is not a mere repository of splendid artefacts but a place for contemporary inspiration. Inspiration is vibrant at the Louvre.’

vacheron-constantin.com

Shrinking an horological icon isn’t as simple as it sounds, but Bulgari makes it look easy with the new Octo Finissimo 37mm, a smaller take on the Octo that rethinks the model from the inside out.

At Watches and Wonders 2026, Bulgari marks its second outing to the Geneva trade fair, arriving with a confident line-up of grail-worthy timepieces – the new Octo Finissimo 37mm among them.

'This has been something the market has long been asking for,' says Fabrizio Buonamassa Stigliani, the Roman maison’s product creation executive director, of the new model. 'I remember we first started talking about it three or four years ago. Today, the Octo Finissimo is very well known among watch collectors, but we quite often receive comments like, “I love the watch, but it’s too big for my wrist.”’

Reducing the case size was anything but straightforward, however. 'If we want to make a smaller one, we are obliged to develop a brand-new movement, because there is no chance to use the existing Octo movement in a smaller size,' Stigliani explains. The result is the new calibre BVF 100, an ultra-thin automatic movement measuring just 2.35mm in height and delivering a hefty 72-hour power reserve. 'Today, we understand that it is more difficult to make a small watch than a big one. It is more difficult to make a smaller movement, and even more difficult to make one with greater power reserve.'

Only two components of the original movement – the platinum rotor and balance wheel – have been carried over, while the rest have been entirely re-engineered. 'If the original Octo Finissimo was the best watch we could imagine 15 years ago, the 37mm is the best watch we can produce today in our facilities,' says Stigliani.

Visually, the design remains largely unchanged. 'The watch must remain immediately recognisable,' says Stigliani. Instead, the focus falls on reworked proportions and wearability, with the new 37mm case featuring a slightly thicker profile and a reworked bracelet, now composed of two components with a new push-button clasp.

The 37mm is not positioned as a women’s-only timepiece. 'It was important to avoid positioning it as a “smaller” or “female” version. That would have been a mistake,' says Stigliani. Instead, it’s intended to run as a parallel line alongside the 40mm range, one that opens the door to new materials and configurations.

'The goal was not simply to make another version of the Octo Finissimo,' adds Stigliani, 'but to create a completely new watch.'

bulgari.com

In 1969, Piaget rethought the parameters of watch-wearing, introducing the ‘21st Century Collection’, where watches swung gracefully from long gold chains. Worn looped around the neck, the watches, with their ornamental stone dials, were first and foremost vivid pieces of jewellery, encapsulating Yves Piaget’s philosophy that blended both disciplines.

Now, at Watches and Wonders 2026, these swinging sautoirs are making a comeback as the Swinging Pebbles collection, with three pieces crafted in three stones, tiger’s eye, verdite and pietersite.

For Piaget, now feels like the right time to revisit the bold and fluid spirit of the original. ‘At Piaget, ornamental stones are at the heart of what we do, sometimes literally, with creations such as the Swinging Pebble, made entirely from tiger’s eye, verdite or pietersite,’ says Piaget creative director Stéphanie Sivrière. ‘I actually found the inspiration while going through our archives; in the early 1970s, our artisans made a so-called kimono pocket watch, especially designed for the Japanese market. It was sculpted from malachite; it was bold, flamboyant and singular – very Piaget.’

Each of these new pendant watches is sculpted from a single stone, before being hollowed out for the insertion of the movement, and then smoothed over with the portion of stone that is left. ‘This year, it is all about the art of colour for us; this is why I chose three ornamental stones with distinct colour,’ Sivrière adds. ‘The main challenge was to find a way to make it look seamless.’

piaget.com

The Manufacture brings its most ambitious lineup in years to Watches and Wonders 2026: 20 new creations, four limited-edition Nautilus anniversary pieces, and a debut automaton wristwatch that marks a first in Patek’s modern history. Here's a breakdown of every new model.

Celestial Sunrise/Sunset (ref. 6105G-001)

Patek’s headliner of 2026 is a technical first: a wristwatch that displays the times of sunrise and sunset, housed in a 47mm white-gold case with a dial charting the Geneva night sky. The movement features a patented system that simultaneously corrects the time and sunrise/sunset indications whenever the clocks change.

‘The Crow and the Fox’ Automaton (ref. 5249R-001)

This wristwatch automaton is inspired by a pocket watch from 1958, currently held in the Patek Philippe Museum. Drawing on La Fontaine's fable ‘The Crow and the Fox’, it displays hours and minutes on demand, animating the scene beneath a rich brown opaline dial set in a rose-gold case. It is the first automaton wristwatch in Patek’s modern history.

Cubitus Perpetual Calendar (ref. 5840P-001)

The Cubitus collection gets its first grand complication: a perpetual calendar in a large platinum case. The open-worked blue dial, with its characteristic horizontal pierced strips, reveals the skeletonised movement beneath – making the mechanics themselves part of the design.

24-Hour Alarm with Date (ref. 5322G-001)

Patek Philippe brings the alarm complication back to the forefront with a 41mm white-gold piece combining a hobnail-guilloché caseband with a textured lacquer dial. The movement allows users to set an alarm for any time in a 24-hour cycle, sounding via a hammer on a classic gong.

Minute Repeater Calatrava (ref. 7047G-001)

This is a minute repeater in a modern Calatrava guise, pairing a white-gold case with a navy-blue dial and an embossed carbon motif. The self-winding movement keeps the profile remarkably slim – making it one of Patek's thinnest-ever minute repeaters.

Gem-set Perpetual Calendar Minute Repeater (ref. 5374/400P-001)

This is the most rarefied piece in Patek’s 2026 collection, limited to just eight examples. Its platinum case frames a Balinese mother-of-pearl dial set with Paraiba tourmalines – among the rarest gems on earth, and the very reason production cannot exceed eight pieces.

Flyback Chronograph with Perpetual Calendar (ref. 5204G-010)

A new version of an iconic reference, the Flyback Chronograph Perpetual Calendar gets a navy-blue sunburst dial, white-gold case and a navy composite strap with red contrast stitching – a deliberately sporty finish for a complex watch.

In-Line Perpetual Calendar (ref. 5236P-011)

This is a platinum grand complication built around Patek’s patented in-line perpetual calendar: day, date and month united in a single aperture at 12 o'clock. The ultra-thin movement keeps the profile elegantly slim, while the vertically satin-finished dial gives the watch a refined, modern character.

Perpetual Calendar Chronograph Trilogy (refs. 5270P-015, 5270P-016 and 5270P-017)

Three new platinum versions of one of Patek’s most celebrated references arrive simultaneously: a charcoal-grey lacquer dial, a blue lacquer dial and a striking red lacquer dial, each with a dark gradient rim. Same architecture, three very different personalities.

Annual Calendar (refs. 5396R-016 and 4946G-001)

The Manufacture presents two new takes on its Annual Calendar complication. The rose-gold version pairs warm tones with a sand-beige sunburst dial, while the white-gold version takes a more contemporary approach, with a textured blue-grey dial and a denim-motif strap.

World Time (ref. 7129J-001)

One of Patek Philippe's most practical complications, the World Time allows simultaneous reading of all time zones at a glance. This version makes a bold statement with a yellow-gold case and carmine-red lacquer dial, while a single push of a button updates every city display at once.

Calatrava (refs. 5227G-015, 7200/50G-001 and 7200/50G-012)

Three new Calatravas affirm the collection's values of pure design, proportion and refinement. The men's model features an opaline dial and the signature Officer-style case, while two women's models offer a choice of sand-beige or ice-blue sunburst dials, each powered by an ultra-thin movement that keeps the case super slender.

Golden Ellipse (refs. 5738G-001 and 3738G/100G-014)

The Golden Ellipse – whose distinctive oval case is proportioned according to the golden ratio – returns in two versions: the large Jumbo size and a medium size. Both feature olive-green sunburst dials with shimmering depth, and ultra-thin movements that make them among the thinnest watches in the current collection.

Nautilus 50th Anniversary (refs. 5810/1G-001, 5810G-001, 5610/1P-001 and 958G-001)

Four limited-edition pieces celebrate the Nautilus – Patek’s iconic luxury sports watch, launched in 1976 – turning 50. Two large-format models in white gold – one on a metal bracelet, one on a fabric-style strap – are joined by a slightly smaller platinum version on a platinum bracelet. All three use an ultra-thin movement that itself dates back to 1977. Rounding out the quartet is a Nautilus desk clock in white gold – a playful, unexpected nod to the collection's origins.

One hundred years ago, Rolex changed watchmaking forever with the Oyster – the world's first waterproof wristwatch. At Watches and Wonders 2026, returning to Geneva from 14-20 April, the brand marks that milestone not with nostalgia but with a forward-looking collection. Read on to discover all of Rolex's new releases.

Oyster Perpetual 41

Rolex’s headline piece at Watches and Wonders is a dedicated centenary tribute. This yellow Rolesor version – Oystersteel case and bracelet with a yellow gold bezel and crown – echoes the case details of early Oyster watches. The slate dial features the inscription ‘100 years’ at six o'clock, while the Rolex name and minute track squares are rendered in signature green. The winding crown is also engraved with the number 100.

Oyster Perpetual 36

Where the Oyster Perpetual 41 looks back, the 36 takes a bold new direction with a burst of colour. Its multicoloured lacquer dial features the Jubilee motif, in which letters spelling ‘Rolex’ form a playful composition across the face. Ten individual colours are applied one by one via pad printing – an extremely technically demanding process. The result is a dial unlike anything else in the current collection – joyful and sophisticated.

Oyster Perpetual 28 and 34

Two new additions to the smaller Oyster Perpetual references come in solid 18-carat gold. The 28mm is crafted in yellow gold with a green stone lacquer dial, while the 34mm is made from Everose gold with a blue stone lacquer dial. Both have satin-finished bracelets that add textural warmth to the metal. Notably, the hour markers at three, six and nine o'clock are fashioned from natural stone.

Datejust 41

The Datejust 41 appears this year in white Rolesor with a lacquered green ombré dial that deepens in tone towards the edges. The gradient brings an element of drama to one of Rolex's most enduring designs, while the fluted bezel and date window remain hallmarks of its identity. The contrast between the ombré rim and the date aperture gives the display added clarity – a subtle upgrade on a watch that has been in continuous production since 1945.

Yacht-Master II

The most mechanically significant release of the year is the new-generation Yacht-Master II, which has undergone a complete redesign. The regatta chronograph has been reimagined around the new calibre 4162, which powers a counterclockwise-running countdown. The pared-back dial, winch-inspired pusher geometry and Cerachrom bezel in blue are available in Oystersteel or yellow gold.

Day-Date 40

Rolex introduces an entirely new proprietary alloy with this 18-carat Jubilee Gold model, whose interwoven tones of yellow, grey and pink immediately set it apart from standard yellow or Everose gold. Paired with a light green aventurine dial, the result is a watch that feels fresh rather than merely revised.

Cosmograph Daytona

Finally, Rolex presents a new Daytona in Rolesium, its combination of Oystersteel and platinum. A white enamelled dial sits against an anthracite Cerachrom ceramic bezel enriched with tungsten carbide, with a platinum edging band around the circumference. The tachymetric numerals are horizontally set in a contemporary typeface, referencing the first Cosmograph Daytona. A sapphire crystal case back, secured by a platinum ring, reveals the movement.

Hermès Horloger has traditionally taken a thoughtful approach to Watches and Wonders, bypassing the neutrality of Geneva’s Palexpo with epic set designs from which to showcase the year’s new watch releases.

This year is no different, with Hermès presenting a creative scenography in tribute to the new Hermès H08 Squelette watch. The Hermès H08, originally launched in 2021, now releases its first skeleton watch, presented in two versions, and crafted in black PVD-treated titanium to ensure a wearable lightness. ‘This type of development is particularly well suited to the Hermès H08 line, which emphasises lightness through the openwork architecture of the movement and the use of technical materials that affirm its urban and all-terrain character,’ says Philippe Delhotal, creative director of Hermès Horloger.

‘The titanium skeleton allows for playfulness with the transparency and visual airiness of the movement, while preserving essential robustness thanks to a contemporary graphic structure. It is also a real technical challenge: removing material while ensuring the movement functions properly require great precision. This piece returns to the very essence of the Hermès H08, a watch that explores materials and can be worn every day. Hermès' vision imagines the skeleton as a scaffold, both architectural and daring.’

For Delhotal, it is a natural extension of the elegant sportiness of the H08. ‘It extends the spirit of the Hermès H08 line by orchestrating a dialogue between angles and curves, exploring materials and playing with colours, another essential language for the maison,’ he adds.

Its distinctive skeleton silhouette, with its play on clean lines and negative space, has inspired French designer and artist Jean-Simon Roch in his Watches & Wonders scenography for Hermès.

In the immersive space, Roch peels back the curtain, drawing on his artistic experience of working with animated objects to reveal the magical inner workings of the skeleton movement. ‘I love it when you perceive what's behind an effect, when you sense a simple principle that produces something wonderful,’ he says. ‘Revealing what's hidden also invites the audience into the story, making the piece familiar. An effect is often a chain reaction of movements, which are often just as choreographed as the effect itself. Like a music box, who hasn't enjoyed opening it to watch the drum turn?’

Roch has worked with Hermès before, appreciating the attention to detail which extends beyond surface level. ‘Being able to immerse myself in the Emile Hermès collections, finding drawings of old theatres and engravings of ancient ceremonial arrangements, was more than rewarding,’ he says. ‘I also knew that close attention would be paid to the installation, which is essential for a piece of this size. Hermès understands and respects the time artists and artisans need to complete a project, which is one of the most important things in the creative process.’

hermes.com

Cartier’s 2026 collection recalibrates loved watches, offering a series of returns to canonical shapes. All are recognisable, but reconsidered with new materials, finer mechanics, or a more considered surfaces, some more unexpected than others.

From the jewellery workbench to the movement lab, the breadth of Cartier’s new releases cannot be understated. It underlines the brand’s standing in collector circles, having had a massive rise on the auction scene as well as climbing the list in terms of turnover. Even to an untrained eye, it is clear that creativity is the strongest factor of Cartier’s resurgence, and at Watches and Wonders this year, it shows.

Baignoire

The Baignoire has stole the limelight on many an Instagrammed wrist lately, and now gets a new surface treatment at Watches and Wonders 2026. The bangle-bracelet version, introduced in 2023, now features the Clou de Paris motif throughout its length. Appearing as glittering armour, its bracelet, case, and dial has been rendered in monochrome, tactile yellow gold. The hobnail pattern, a Cartier staple since the 1920s, is pressed into the gold through a craft process that preserves volume and evenness, then hand-polished to amplify each point’s definition. An almost otherworldy diamond version adds 171 brilliant-cut stones fitted across case and bangle, with a snow-set dial. The result is a jewellery watch where texture transforms the sleek Baignoire, opening a new chapter for the petite charmer.

Cartier Privé

Heralding the tenth edition of Cartier Privé, Les Opus marks a decade of collector-focused releases by bringing back three shapes from previous chapters: the Tank Normale, the Tortue Chronographe Monopoussoir, and the enigmatic Crash Squelette. All three are rendered in platinum with a burgundy accent running through straps, dial details, and the rare ruby cabochon crown. The Crash has been the brand’s heavy-hitting auction star for years and will undoubtedly get the most attention with a new skeleton configuration featuring the Manufacture 1967 MC movement. Hand-hammered bridges are shaped as Roman numerals, and 142 components are packed into the distorted case. Limited to 150 pieces, it is the Privé series’ most technically involved piece to date, and a new Cartier Privé La Collection sub-line launches alongside, in yellow gold.

Myst de Cartier

The Myst de Cartier is a clasp-free jewellery watch, a discreet nod to time keeping. It is structured like a strand of talismans threaded onto a flexible bracelet, and worn by sliding it over the wrist. The square case sits at the centre, flanked by alternating pavé and lacquered modules underlining the strong tradition of metiers d’art within the manufacture. On the yellow gold version, 634 brilliant-cut diamonds are paired with hand-painted black lacquer lines, applied one by one at the Maison des Métiers d’Art in Switzerland; 30 hours of gem-setting create the bead-set bracelet’s depth and perspective. A white gold version dispenses with the lacquer entirely, covering the same structure in 986 diamonds for a monochrome, shape-shifting effect.

Roadster

The Roadster has long been a hidden gem from the Maison. This year it returns to the Cartier line-up 23 years after its original 2002 debut. The bold, rounded design language is intact, featuring a trapezoidal case, a large tactile conical crown and a speedometer-inspired striated dial. It is still framed by a bezel with corner rivets, but proportions, finishes, and ergonomics have been reworked by a team of over 100 artisans. New versions will be available in steel, yellow gold, and two-tone gold and steel, in medium and large sizes. Movements are the Manufacture 1847 MC (large) and 1899 MC (medium), both self-winding. The redesigned bracelet uses a QuickSwitch system for strap interchangeability, with polished and brushed surface contrasts sharpening the overall form.

Santos-Dumont

The Santos-Dumont takes its most substantial update in years, centred on a new large model in yellow gold, fitted with what appears to be a soft-feeling 15-row mesh bracelet with 394 links. Each link is 1.15 mm thick and is a construction that references the Maison’s flexible gold bracelets of the 1920s. The standout dial is a gilt version in polished obsidian, a volcanic stone from Mexico sliced to 0.3 mm. Tiny trapped air bubbles give each piece a unique iridescent quality, and the gold-and-black combination is timeless. The movement is the hand-wound Manufacture 430 MC, and two further LM versions offer silvered satin-finish dials in yellow gold and platinum, with two new models in yellow gold and two-tone rounding out the range.

Tortue

The Tortue can perhaps be classed as the connoisseur’s choice, and its shape has been in continuous production since 1912. This time, it arrives at Watches & Wonders in a substantially reworked form, with the Manufacture’s design studio having softened and enlarged the proportions. The traditional guilloché dial has been replaced with an embossed relief motif, and the traditional rail track has been simplified into a row of dots, a detail drawn from an archive piece from 1922. Five versions in yellow gold, white gold, and rose gold, with and without diamonds, span small and mini sizes. A platinum LM model takes the baguette-cut diamond treatment, with 46 stones on the bezel and a guilloché dial. An evocative Tortue Panthère Métiers d’Art creation is also offered: a champlevé enamel piece extending the panther motif from dial to case middle, limited to 100 pieces each in white and yellow gold.

Santos Chronograph

The Santos de Cartier Chronograph is a revision of the 2020 model, scaled up to a large 47.5 x 39.8 mm case and fitted with a reworked dial featuring alternating satin and sunray finishes. Three sub-dials carry seconds at 6, minutes at 3, and hours at 9, with gold or rhodium rings framing each counter. The automatic 1904-CH MC movement offers 47 hours of power reserve and water resistance to 100 metres. Available in steel, two-tone, and yellow gold, each version ships with a second strap and uses both the SmartLink and QuickSwitch systems for quick adjustment and interchangeability.

cartier.com

The watch world’s biggest event of the year, Watches and Wonders, just held its 2026 iteration, and with 65 brands unveiling their new launches, there was much to celebrate.

We were on the ground to take in all the news.

Watches and Wonders took place 14-20 April 2026, watchesandwonders.com

Piaget’s 1960s-inspired pebble watches swing into action

In 1969, Piaget rethought the parameters of watch-wearing, introducing the ‘21st Century Collection’, where watches swung gracefully from long gold chains. Worn looped around the neck, the watches, with their ornamental stone dials, were first and foremost vivid pieces of jewellery, encapsulating Yves Piaget’s philosophy that blended both disciplines.

Now, at Watches and Wonders 2026, these swinging sautoirs are making a comeback as the Swinging Pebbles collection, with three pieces crafted in three stones, tiger’s eye, verdite and pietersite.

Read more

Vacheron Constantin and the Louvre unveil new watches inspired by ancient civilisations

Since announcing a partnership with the Louvre in 2019, Vacheron Constantin has released a limited-edition series of exquisitely produced watches inspired by the museum’s treasures. Now, the maison has unveiled the second of the Great Civilisations series, created in conjunction with the Louvre, with four models limited to 15 pieces each translating cultural symbols into horological form.

Read more

Van Cleef & Arpels’ new watches are inspired by the sun and the moon

Van Cleef & Arpels looks to poetic inspirations at Watches and Wonders 2026, blurring the lines between watches and jewellery in a host of new releases. Watches, in aventurine glass and embossed enamel, in moonlight and retrograde minutes, bring a romantic spin to traditional time-telling.

Read more

How TAG Heuer’s Watches and Wonders 2026 releases shape up

TAG Heuer’s Watches and Wonders 2026 offering is all about Monaco, with two distinct takes on the most recognisable square chronograph. While the Monaco Chronograph is ‘rearchitected’ in titanium for wider reach, the Monaco Evergraph is built around TAG Heuer’s thirst for innovation and features a chronograph mechanism with a long list of innovative tech to unpack.

Read more

Take a closer look at the 2026 Bulgari Octo Finissimo

Shrinking an horological icon isn’t as simple as it sounds, but Bulgari makes it look easy with the new Octo Finissimo 37mm, a smaller take on the Octo that rethinks the model from the inside out.

Read more

Patek Philippe unveils 20 new models

The Manufacture brings its most ambitious lineup in years to Watches and Wonders 2026: 20 new creations, four limited-edition Nautilus anniversary pieces, and a debut automaton wristwatch that marks a first in Patek’s modern history.

Read more

Cartier puts the focus on shapes and materials in exciting new watch releases

Cartier’s 2026 collection recalibrates loved watches, offering a series of returns to canonical shapes. All are recognisable, but reconsidered with new materials, finer mechanics, or a more considered surfaces, some more unexpected than others.

From the jewellery workbench to the movement lab, the breadth of Cartier’s new releases cannot be understated. It underlines the brand’s standing in collector circles, having had a massive rise on the auction scene as well as climbing the list in terms of turnover. Even to an untrained eye, it is clear that creativity is the strongest factor of Cartier’s resurgence, and at Watches and Wonders this year, it shows.

Read more here

Hermès presents its first skeleton H08 watch and playful scenography

Hermès Horloger has traditionally taken a thoughtful approach to Watches and Wonders, bypassing the neutrality of Geneva’s Palexpo with epic set designs from which to showcase the year’s new watch releases.

This year is no different, with Hermès presenting a creative scenography in tribute to the new Hermès H08 Squelette watch. The Hermès H08, originally launched in 2021, now releases its first skeleton watch, presented in two versions, and crafted in black PVD-treated titanium to ensure a wearable lightness. ‘This type of development is particularly well suited to the Hermès H08 line, which emphasises lightness through the openwork architecture of the movement and the use of technical materials that affirm its urban and all-terrain character,’ says Philippe Delhotal, creative director of Hermès Horloger.

Read more here

Rolex celebrates a century of the Oyster

Rolex’s headline piece at Watches and Wonders is a dedicated centenary tribute. This yellow Rolesor version – Oystersteel case and bracelet with a yellow gold bezel and crown – echoes the case details of early Oyster watches. The slate dial features the inscription ‘100 years’ at six o'clock, while the Rolex name and minute track squares are rendered in signature green. The winding crown is also engraved with the number 100.

Read more here

The avant-garde high jewellery offering of Glenn Spiro has been acquiring something of a cult following. Defined by a non-traditional architecture, pieces straddle the worlds of art and jewellery, with Glenn and his son Joe's instinctive approach to design taking shape in the sourcing of striking rare stones, which are juxtaposed against less conventional materials, from wood and leather through to titanium, bronze and rose gold.

An informed respect for heritage is intertwined with contemporary reimaginings, a philosophy evident in the ‘Materials of the Old World’ collection, which references the exceptional pieces amassed by great collectors throughout history. Here, ten rare ‘Old European’ cut diamonds make a brilliant foil for an antique-inspired titanium and diamond necklace.

This article appears in the May 2026 Issue of Wallpaper*, available in print on newsstands, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today

'We hardly ever use the second hand on a watch unless we’re counting down for New Year's Eve,' jokes Nicolas Ducoudert, car interior designer turned founder of French independent watch brand Beaubleu. 'It’s almost useless, but it does give you a sense of time passing, and that’s what I wanted to play with, more expressively. I wanted the second hand to offer a kind of experience.'

Beaubleu’s signature design element is that each hand is comprised of a circular form, including the second hand. But with its Second Francaise model the second hand – or circle – appears to move around the dial as though disconnected from anything on it; it’s not, as hands on more conventional watches are, affixed to a central pinion.

It’s what’s known in the watch business as a mystery dial – a watch display that doesn’t make it exactly clear how the hands are driven. Launching later this year is Beaubleu’s La Piece, a second mystery model, with a one-piece dial stamped from brass by the Monnaie de Paris, France’s oldest institution, government-owned and responsible for minting French Euro coins. It’s the first watch dial it has been involved in creating.

"Mystery dial watches tend to be very expensive for the simple reason that they’re a nightmare to make, and it took us 21 prototypes to get the right combination of the various factors,” notes Ducoudert. That involves, in this instance, stacking a transparent disc over the dial, the rotation of which gives the illusion of a floating seconds display. Weight is also a factor: this seconds disc – historically made from sapphire crystal or acrylic - needs to be light enough to be rotated by the power available from the mechanical movement. The fit and finishing of the components is also critical in order to maintain the illusion. Beaubleu’s models use a specially shaped glass, the refractive quality of which further helps hide the trick.

'These mystery dial watches are less about accuracy [in the sense that it’s hard to tell where the seconds circle is indicating precisely] and more about perception,' Ducoudert argues. 'There’s a lyricism to a mystery dial.'

The concept of the mystery dial is said to belong to the watchmaker Jean-Eugene Robert-Houdin, who completed his first mystery clock in 1839 (also a keen magician, he’d use it in his shows, and would lend his surname to the legendary Houdini). But it was Cartier – with its Model A clock – that made the idea popular, introducing the use of transparent discs, one it would later apply to pocket watches. It was in the 1940s that the mystery dial wristwatch really took off, with other makers, from Benrus to LeCoultre, exploring multiple other methods to the same entertaining effect: Vacheron Constantin, for example, simply hid the centre of the dial to reveal only the tips of each hand.

Come the 1970s Zodiac applied the use of transparent discs to a wristwatch, the Astrographic, launched in 1969 – when the avant-garde nature of the display was thought to chime well with the technological revolution embodied by the first moon landing – and revived as a limited edition to mark its 50th anniversary in 2019. Longines’ Comet, released the year after, used two concentric rotating discs, one for minutes, one for hours.

More recently, in 2019 Maurice Lacroix’s bonkers Mysterious Seconds came with a wandering seconds hand, while last year Frank Muller launched its Round Triple Mystery - its third in a series of mystery dial watches, using a dial with concentric wheels and triangular hands - and Timex reissued its 1975 ‘mystery dial lite’ Enigma. The latter uses broad hands colour-matched to the dial behind to achieve a similar effect to a true mystery dial, in part to keep the price down, in part, being a quartz model, to keep the energy cost down too.

'The appearance of an element floating in space presents time in a particularly graphic way,' enthuses Giorgio Gallo, global creative director of the Timex Group, which has further mystery dial watches in the pipeline, potentially including a mechanical model that would allow for the full transparent disc approach to the display. 'Even if the idea is part of watch history it still looks very modern. It’s something different from the usual while still being analogue. There’s a magical effect to it.'

t’s one that is easy to understand when it’s explained. But then perhaps that is to spoil the mystery. As Nicolas Ducoudert says, 'We have customers who come to us and ask ‘how does it work?’ and then stop themselves. ‘You know what, don’t tell me,’ they say.'

From London to Lahore, New York, Paris, Milan, and Cornwall, some of today's most visionary jewellery designers are deeply attuned to the landscapes around them. Whether translating street signs, folkloric symbols, or everyday objects into elaborate and detailed design forms or using textured surfaces sourced from their immediate surroundings, they employ techniques that range from hand-carved wax and woven silver to pressed pennies and repurposed machinery. Each designer works with metal, stone, and found objects to create pieces that are at once delicate and boldly modern, drawing on a rich seam of references from design and art history, to cinema and costume.

Georgia Kemball

London-based jewellery designer and maker Georgia Kemball draws on a wonderfully playful range of references. Some of her rings feature hand-carved cherubs cradling freshwater pearls; the Fish Fin Ring wraps a fish’s anatomy around the finger; and the Bone Pendant holds a real bone fragment, functioning as a talisman of memory, courage, and protection for whoever wears it. She also creates delicate charms, including one that spells out ‘I Love You’ in tiny, deliberate dots. Her Orgy Ring is modelled after an 18th-century piece in the British Museum collection and encapsulates her fascination with history and the very intimate, personal act of wearing jewellery.

Kemball’s jewellery started when she began creating jewellery gifts for friends. Trained in textiles at the Royal College of Art, she found herself drawn to jewellery’s intimacy and scale. Her work is grounded in lost-wax casting, carving each design by hand before casting it in precious metal, a process that suits her focus on creating intricate, emotionally charged detail. Versatility also defines her approach to jewellery making. Her pendant charms can hook onto safety-pin-like fastenings, worn solo or clustered on a chain. Kemball is now developing a new collection focused on men’s rings and bold unisex pieces in collaboration with stylist and costume designer Calvin How.

SIGLA

A household object transformed into something you wear! SIGLA's Salt Shaker Ring takes the Art Deco salt shaker as its muse, crafting it in recycled silver with a subtle nod to Elsa Peretti's legendary designs for Tiffany. SIGLA’s jewellery pieces are delightfully unexpected. Elegant, intricate brooches, rings and necklace designs references costume design, cinema, fashion history, and the everyday.

Founded in 2025 by Natasha Law and India Ayles, each SIGLA piece is crafted in Vicenza, the historic heart of Italian goldsmithing. The name is drawn from the Roman siglum (a maker’s mark pressed into metal), and captures the studio’s ethos of creating jewellery with identity, intention, and the unmistakable imprint of the hand. In their own words, SIGLA’s pieces feel like opening your grandmother’s jewellery box and finding something unexpectedly relevant again, without knowing exactly why it feels so right.

The Dove Brooch is statement piece, which can be bought in multiple varieties, including with hand-mosaicked rose, crystal, and red siam ombre gemstones, complete with a tiny rose-colored eye. Designed for shirts, jumpers, tailoring, or outerwear, it’s a symbol of peace, and a perfect example of SIGLA’s playful approach to tradition.

Their plaited S-link chains draw on the engineered precision of a bicycle chain and the shimmer of sequins from Golden Age Hollywood, creating a material sensitivity that feels almost textile in spirit.

The studio channels the bold geometry, sleek lines, and glamour of 1930s costume jewellery through a contemporary lens, shaped by the founders’ diverse backgrounds. Natasha and India first met studying art history at University of Cambridge. Natasha went on to design womenswear and leather accessories at Giorgio Armani, while India worked as a costume designer for film, spanning superhero franchises and period dramas. This year, SIGLA goes mobile. With a custom display system on wheels, they’re taking their collections on the road to pop-ups across London, Milan Design Week, and on to Florence, Marseille, and Cadaqués, with the aim to revive the travelling-salesman tradition as a modern, female-led journey, making movement, encounter and display part of the work itself.

Zohra Rahman

Twisted heart-shaped NYC Heartbreaker Earrings, inspired by the curled wrought-iron gates of New York, sit alongside Zohra Rahman’s core collection pieces that includes a necklace reimagining the ‘Mashallah’ motif found on building facades, vehicles, and in markets throughout Lahore. The urban textures of Lahore and New York City are central to Zohra Rahman’s designs, shaping her work with a blend of grit, poetry, and playful elegance.

Throughout her collections, Zohra Rahman experiments with texture and movement, reinventing the way each piece interacts with the body. Her inventive joinery allows components to twist or coil, creating dynamic designs that function differently from every angle. The sterling silver Hell Hatch Ring features a fiery, flame-like face, with its hand-pierced oblong top sits atop a split-wire band that twists and wraps around itself, forming a fluid yet structured base that anchors the design with effortless precision. The Coil Hatch Ring has a hand-wrapped, coiled sterling silver face. By combining unexpected and tactile finishes with meticulous craftsmanship, she transforms jewellery into playful, sculptural objects that are as much about sensation and interaction as they are about visual impact.

A graduate of Central Saint Martins, Rahman launched her label in 2014. From her intimate atelier in Lahore, Rahman trains jewellers through apprenticeships and collaborates with local engravers and stonecutters. Working between Lahore and New York, she draws on dual cultural worlds, absorbing urban aesthetics, spirituality, and everyday design, to create pieces that are at once personal and political. Her upcoming work expands into mobiles, sculptural objects, and bespoke commissions, continuing her exploration of jewellery as a transformative, transportive medium.

Keshav Anand

At first glance, London-based jeweller and editor Keshav Anand’s pieces might read as relics or historical artefacts, but their hybrid themes make them unmistakably contemporary. Anand mines overlooked symbols and imagery to craft ornate talismans and miniature sculptures in gemstones and recycled precious metals. His pendants feel at once ancient and contemporary, with their earthy jewel tones, crafted from bloodstone, Dalmatian jasper, obsidian, tiger's eye, emeralds, rubies, pearls, gold, and silver, and intricate detailing. Drawing on queer South Asian narratives, Anand evokes the region’s transfigurative entities, from the intimate love scenes carved at Khajuraho to the elusive Tamil sphinx, Purushamriga, bringing together storytelling and ritual in his jewellery pieces, reviving stories long buried, some deliberately obscured through the destruction and pillaging of sacred sites.

While studying Fine Art at Central Saint Martins, Anand was inspired by artists who explored the relationship between sculpture and performance, for instance Franz West’s wearable papier mâché and plaster pieces, and François-Xavier Lalanne’s zoomorphic desks and fireplaces. Functionality and design resonated with this creative practice, and jewellery making evolved from that impulse. He sees jewellery as both protective and uplifting, almost like a talisman to wear that can brighten the day. His references are wide-ranging, spanning Greco-Roman antiques, Indian temple carvings, Victorian gems, and deeply personal influences from his family. Gold, in particular, has long given him a tangible sense of connection and a way to feel close to loved ones, even those far away or no longer with us.

Fervent Moon

You might know Fervent Moon from the long-running NTS Radio show of the same name. Founded by artist Lewis Teague Wright, Fervent Moon has been on air for over 13 years, hosting an ever-shifting mix of genres and themes. The project began online in 2008, when Wright launched a website that uploaded a single mp3 each week for seven days, creating a fleeting, rotating archive. Guest selectors from around the world contributed seven-track selections, building a dispersed, ephemeral sound library.

From barbed-fence–like bracelets and necklaces to molecular rings and iced gem linked chains, Fervent Moon’s collection explores a rich variety of textures and forms. This is in part a reflection of Teague Wright’s practice, which moves fluidly between embroidery, sculpture, video, and jewellery design. For him, a chain is never just a chain. It is a wearable sculpture, attuned to the rhythms of the body. Through sculptural forms, documentation, and sonic world-building, Fervent Moon’s pieces exist as both a physical, wearable object and a transmission, translating sound into form and feeling.

His latest charm collection is a wearable archive, designed to be worn alone or layered over time. Each piece is a pressed penny inscribed with phrases like Cherry on the Top, Kiss Me My Fool, or Satyr, which draws on his research and obsessions, nodding to ideas from the Dionysian impulse of Roman theatre, where chaos, appetite, and comic relief danced through carved masks. Fervent Moon’s design focus is to create maps with no fixed destination, bringing together themes from play and sculptural storytelling into his work.

Julia Tyrrell Bunge

Based in Paris, artist and jewellery designer Julia Tyrrell Bunge finds her materials where you might least expect them — in the cogs and chains of discarded bicycles, reclaimed and recast in silver into sculptural jewellery that sits as comfortably on the finger as it does suspended from the ear. Her designs explore malfunction, obsolescence, and the unexpected poetry of broken systems. Gears, links, and engineered components are reimagined into pieces that feel surprisingly elegant and organic.

A signature motif is the derailleur chain: layers of stacked links reimagined as a bold bracelet, echoing the bicycle gear mechanism that lifts a chain from one sprocket to another. The Marotte Earring turns tiny metal baubles into playful, kinetic hoops, while her sculptural rings, which are threaded, twisted, and overlapping, cradle vivid Tourmaline Green stones, merging industrial edges with refined craft.

Each component is cast or set in silver, forming structured compositions built from repeated and reconfigured parts. What once functioned as machinery becomes ornament, and what once wore out becomes enduring and everlasting. She began making jewellery to give these discarded materials new life as lasting, wearable objects. Now, she is developing a new collection that pushes her practice further, by experimenting with form, function, and kinetic movement to explore how engineered systems can continue to live on, transformed, on the body.

Zoé Mohm

Zoé’s jewellery looks as if it has slipped out of a folktale and wandered through a dream. Her pieces twist together symbols, knots, and illogical ties in a way that feels both folkloric and surrealist, creating intricate designs which seem to defy structural logic as metal softens and coils around chokers, ear cuffs, rings, and brooches. Her work feels delicate and otherworldly, with designs that look hand-spun by a storyteller, not forged in sterling silver.

I first encountered Zoé’s work displayed with Suns Works at Basel Social Club in Basel in 2025, where a hand-forged, cast sterling-silver brooch caught my eye. An engraved eye wept a long swaying teardrop charm, paired with a dew-drop-tipped yarrow blossom. It felt like a wink to classic Surrealist imagery, but told in her own language. Across her designs, even a simple safety pin can become uncanny, reimagined as a hand-forged sterling form with a woven basket head and a dangling pebble charm. The Achillée Fog Drops earrings are segmented, with leafy marguerite-daisy and tiny pebble charms. The Calla Cluster Bracelet is an astonishingly beautiful hand-woven sterling silver mesh bangle draped with calla lilies, hearts, bead sticks, dew drops and a lone bird. Her Tassel Necklaces are light, open-mesh rope chains whose ends are swallowed hollow pebbles sprouting chain tassels. Even a simple safety pin becomes uncanny in Mohm’s work, reimagined as a hand-forged sterling form with a woven basket head and a dangling pebble charm.

Mohm was born in Vaulx-en-Velin, France. Whilst she never formally studied jewellery, she made it instinctively as a child. Her training was in textile embroidery, weaving and tapestry – disciplines that gave her a deep, technical fluency with handwork. When friends began asking her for custom jewellery in 2020, her practice grew naturally, and her textile thinking followed her into metal where she often weaves, knots, braids, and constructs silver as if it were thread. Her jewellery may be sterling silver, but it still behaves like fabric: soft to the imagination, endlessly intricate, and threaded with stories.

CC-Steding

CC-Steding is the collaborative jewellery project of Ben Chaplin and Nichola Farnan, whose work spans pins, earrings, headpieces, necklaces, and bracelets. Their pieces carry a distinctive buoyancy, often intertwined with subtle nods to politics, history, and human stories.

Amongst their designs are woven and riveted silver pins and single earrings, and their sterling silver collar clips, a collection inspired by the ‘Paperclip Resistance’ in Norway during World War II. Teachers and students wore paper clips (or ‘binders’ in Norwegian) as a gesture of unity and defiance against the Nazi occupation, a symbol so powerful it was eventually banned. CC-Steding channels this spirit of resilience and meaning into wearable form.

All CC-Steding’s jewellery is designed and handmade in their London workshop, primarily in silver and gold. Process is central to their practice. At the heart of their work is a belief in highlighting the making process as meaning — each piece designed to show its own construction, prompting the question of how and from where it came to form. They are equally drawn to the emotional life of jewellery. Designed for longevity, they see the marks an owner leaves over time on a jewellery piece not as damage, but as the final layer of a piece finding its form.

Collaboration is another thread running through the studio's practice, with recent collaborative work including jewellery and hardware developed for Cecile Tulkens and Independentes De Coeur, to a recent contribution to the GmbH AW26 runway presentation. Looking ahead, a small new CC-Steding collection will debut in Paris in June. In May, they will travel to Tokyo to exhibit new pieces for the first time and visit key retailers, bringing CC-Steding’s playful, thought-provoking jewellery to a global stage.

Willa Hilfreich

Delicate engravings unfold across chunky silver forms in WILLA / HILFREICH’s one-of-a-kind range of rings, from tiny walkers, blossoming flowers, drifting twigs, each piece a miniature world rendered with obsessive care. Statement works include long, dagger-like sand-cast earrings textured with applied Keum Boo 24ct gold foil, holding dangling spheres. Another standout design is a relief ring where two birds sit encased in its surface while others gaze upward at an ancient comet. Above them, two stick figures share a dinner, each crowned with a single sapphire. Elsewhere, a spinning pendant reveals a walking figure on one side and a carved mouse’s feet, tail, and scattered grapes circling its edges.

Willa Hilditch’s practice began in fine art. She first studied at Chelsea College of Arts and then completed the Drawing Year at the Royal Drawing School. Working across sculpture, drawing, and painting, she eventually shifted toward wearable pieces after an evening wax-carving class – a technique now central to her process. Most of her jewellery is cast using the lost-wax method, later embellished with kinetic elements, fine chains, and small precious stones. Self-taught through trial, error, and YouTube, her references emerge less from conventional jewellery and more from contemporary art and ancient artefacts, forming a visual language that is tactile and narrative, with the aim of being unpolished. Alongside jewellery, her drawing practice continues to evolve, she has the dream of merging the two more directly in future research and making.

Emily Nixon

Cornwall's rugged coastline is the starting point for everything Emily Nixon makes. Working directly from the landscape, she shapes and presses warm beeswax around found stones, jagged, molten rock surfaces and cliff formations, translating their raw, elemental surfaces into jewellery — rings, necklaces, and bracelets — that feel as textured and alive as the terrain that shaped them. After studying textiles at Goldsmiths, University of London, alongside artists such as Damian Hirst and Sarah Lucas, Emily worked as an artist, weaving sculptures from steel wool and found objects. She later opened the Ash Gallery in Edinburgh and worked as curator of Newlyn Art Gallery, a role that brought her to Cornwall in the early 1990s and shaped her ongoing artistic preoccupation with the natural world.

In 2000, Emily’s practice evolved into jewellery making. The Rock Drawing Necklace was her first design to use the beeswax method around found stones. A series of imperfectly circular sterling silver links, interrupted by a single solid 18ct yellow gold link, forms an irregularity in the necklace, a reflection of a coastline where nothing is quite symmetrical. The Pebble Circles Pendant distils this further with smaller, softer links on a delicate chain, their rounded forms showing the slow, patient eroding work of water on stone. In the Tide Collection's Stone Set Rings, metal wraps around each stone as the tide wraps around rock, the solid recycled 18ct yellow gold shaped by hand around natural sapphires from Sri Lanka, likely formed over 150 million years ago, and a natural diamond from southern Africa, older still at over a billion years. Geological time is made wearable.

The metals are all recycled, reflecting a deep commitment to responsible sourcing and the circular nature of working with natural materials. Skilled jewellers and goldsmiths in her West Cornwall studio burnish, finish, and set the stones. Every piece is both a reflection of the Cornish terrain and a meditation on the timeless dialogue between human craft and the earth itself.

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.

Jenia Kim, the namesake force behind the Tashkent, Uzbekistan-based fashion label J.Kim, and Natalia Bryantseva, the founder of Berlin-based jewellery brand Avgvst, were both born and raised in the former Soviet Union, Kim in Tashkent and Bryantseva in Russia.

The pair, who met nearly a decade ago, also shares a family history marked by displacement and resilience. Bryantseva’s family was persecuted by Soviet authorities in the 1930s and exiled to Kazakhstan, while Kim’s family is part of the Koryo-saram community of 172,000 ethnic Koreans who were exiled to Central Asia by Joseph Stalin in 1937.

This spring, J.Kim and Avgvst merged their aesthetics and cultural histories for a jewellery collection rooted in craftsmanship and cultural memory. 'For Avgvst, the impulse to collaborate always comes from admiration for the collaborator’s creative mind, and from an ongoing sense of mutual respect and friendship,' explained Bryantseva. 'We’ve always wanted to experiment with jewellery, and we had tried before, but technically, it’s quite complex,' added Kim. 'Avgvst has a very strong professional approach and quality in this field.'

Constructed in white gold, yellow gold, and gold vermeil, the Avgvst x J.Kim collection is built around three ideas that evoke a sense of warmth, heritage, and cultural identity: ‘The Baking Cup’, reimagined as earrings, recalls the pair’s grandmothers’ serving baked goods fresh from the oven; ‘The Tubes’, a contemporary take on traditional Uzbek jewellery, links tubular forms to peridot, garnet, and topaz gemstones; and ‘The Embrace’, flat, floral-shaped motifs resembling cookie-cutter forms, designed to ‘hug’ the wearer’s earlobe or wrist. 'Aesthetically, it’s always about balancing the warmth and decorative richness that exists in Uzbek culture with the clarity and purity of form that comes from Korean culture,' said Kim, whose pieces are in the V&A permanent collection.

To front the Avgvst x J.Kim campaign, Bryantseva and Kim selected New York-based writer and baker Lexie Smith, who, through her research project Bread on Earth, investigates how bread acts as a social, political, economic, and ecological barometer. 'She represents ideas that are important to us – family, craft, dedication to a practice and bringing it to a level of mastery,' said Kim. 'She lives inside the exact territory this collaboration is trying to honour: slow craft, repetition, patience, and the idea that everyday work can carry real cultural weight,' added Bryantseva.

Like her family in the 1930s, Bryantseva also left her home in Russia to start a new life in Berlin. 'People like us – people who are displaced, living away from our own land – try to remember, reconstruct, and restore a sense of where we come from, of our roots,' said Bryantseva. 'I keep my grandmother’s recipe book and bake cookies for my daughter from it. I read that notebook and remember the smell of her food. That is what holds me right now.'

'I think the idea of comfort is very central,' said Kim. 'In a world that often feels overwhelming, there is a need to return to something more essential – to create a sense of stability through simple, human actions, like making something with your hands for your loved ones.'

avgvstjewelry.com

Chopard began life as a watch manufacture in the 19th century, but embraced a bold and colourful new mood when it diversified into the world of jewellery in the 1980s.

Its collections are defined by playful motifs, brightly coloured stones and fluid forms that nod to the creative freedom of its watches, notably seen in the classic Happy Diamonds watch collection, where the diamonds seem to float over the dial, contained between two sapphire crystals.

This spirit of invention characterises the work of artistic director Caroline Scheufele, whose first jewellery design for Chopard was a clown pendant with a belly full of diamonds.

A sense of fun continues in the high jewellery collection. In this ring, colour is given a geometric spin, with a rainbow of agate, garnets, blue topaz and sapphires in a delicate rose gold and titanium chassis.

chopard.com

This article appears in the April 2026 Global Interiors Issue of Wallpaper*, available in print on newsstands, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News + from 5 March 2025. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today

With only a couple of months to go until Audemars Piguet’s Watches & Wonders debut, we were expecting CEO Ilaria Resta to save the ammunition. We were mistaken.

After its voluminous show of strength back in November for Dubai Watch Week, Audemars Piguet is set for the brand’s Watches & Wonders debut in mid-April. Usually, this would mean a small debut this month, but instead, Ilaria Resta, in her third year as CEO, shows strength with a massive release of Royal Oak novelties. Audemars Piguet has recently debuted new takes on the muscular Offshore, a surprising revival of a jump-hour design, and a pocket watch tour de force. Here is a rundown of a major release that spanned a trend-surfing Royal Oak mini, ceramic blues, and QP complexity, starting with something rather complex that might just signal a new lease of life for uber-complicated pocket watches.

150 Héritage Pocket Watch with Universal Calendar

The 150e Héritage pocket watch is conceived as a dedicated pocket format rather than a wristwatch adaptation. It is an impressive halo piece for the brand and is powered by the hand-wound Calibre 1150, integrating a mindboggling array of 47 functions. This includes a sonnerie, minute repeater, tourbillon and split-seconds chronograph. A mechanically independent universal calendar appears on the caseback, mapping solar, lunar and lunisolar cycles from 1900 to 2099. The engraved platinum case and enamel dial emphasise craftsmanship and rarity, making the 150 Héritage Pocket Watch a poster child for the artisanal side of Audemars Piguet, more than an actual timepiece.

Royal Oak Mini

The Royal Oak Mini extends the collection through scale and material, and it also drops two strong references riffing on the petite trend. Two 23 mm quartz references introduce the resurgent look of black onyx framed in pink gold with diamond indices, and a crisp white mother-of-pearl dial in a yellow gold case. With minimal dial elements, surface finishing becomes the primary design feature, and Genta’s octagonal strength works equally well on this diminutive scale. Powered by a long-life quartz movement, the Royal Oak Mini is the jewellery-led expression of the famous watch family.

Calibre 7139: Openworked Perpetual Calendars

Audemars Piguet's new in-house movement, the Calibre 7139, is now contained in the brand’s next-gen openworked perpetual calendar. Built around an all-in-one crown correction system, it removes the need for recessed pushers and tools and is an important card in CEO Ilaria Resta’s 2026 deck. The movement appears in two 41 mm models, starting with a Code 11.59 in white gold and black ceramic. This sporty vibe is complemented by a Royal Oak in titanium with a Bulk Metallic Glass bezel. This new element offers a different, deeper gloss that contrasts with the darker titanium case. The polished octagonal bezel frames a busy, symmetrical, legible dial of calendar indications, with gold details offsetting a monochrome, complex architecture.

Royal Oak Chronograph

The Royal Oak Chronograph 38 mm debuts the new in-house Calibre 6401, in a wearable size with a trio of finishes. The new automatic movement features Audemars Piguet's integrated chronograph architecture, refined with a simplified clutch system to improve pusher feel, and all models now have sapphire casebacks. The dial layout remains based on Audemars Piguet’s Grande Tapisserie dial surface, with contrasting, recessed registers for balance and readability. Case dimensions remain unchanged, preserving the compact profile of the 38 mm format, with the steel version true to its origins. A gem-set version in pink gold dialling up the glamour.

Royal Oak Selfwinding with Malachite Dials

Two yellow-gold Royal Oak Selfwinding models feature malachite dials, whose natural patterns make each dial unique. Both versions come in 18K yellow gold cases, and applied gold markers and lumed hands maintain the collection’s functional language. Standard self-winding movements power each size, and water resistance remains unchanged. Despite the trendy choice of malachite for the dials, these two references are positioned as series-production Royal Oaks rather than limited pieces. One was spotted on Bad Bunny's wrist during his Super Bowl halftime show.

Code 11.59 Selfwinding

These new Code 11.59 Selfwinding models focus on colour and proportion, retaining the collection’s trademark case architecture. Both watches have the 38 mm case and radial ripple-like dial introduced in 2023, housed in pink gold. One adopts an all-black palette, while the other uses a silver-toned dial paired with a brown strap. The self-winding Calibre 5900 remains unchanged, underscoring the collection’s role as a platform for variation rather than mechanical development.

Royal Oak Offshore Diver

The Offshore Diver receives a restrained colour refresh across three stainless-steel models. Two retain black dials with coloured 0–15-minute zones, while a third introduces a deep teal dial. All maintain ceramic crowns, interchangeable straps and 300-metre water resistance. The Calibre 4308 remains unchanged, reframing the big brother of Genta’s Royal Oak, designed by Emmanuel Gueit. The Offshore has a focus on durability and wearability, and is, despite its price, still a tool watch at heart.

Neo Frame Jumping Hour Calibre

The Jumping Hour stands apart from Audemars Piguet’s core collections. Jump Hour displays were among the most consistent trends of 2025, embraced by brands such as Bremont and Cartier. This new watch draws on a 1920s design by the brand, with the time is displayed through two apertures. A jumping hour window at 12 and a crescent aperture at 6 are set within a rectangular pink-gold case with pronounced Art Deco side gadroons. A black PVD-treated sapphire dial is structurally bonded to the case, allowing an uninterrupted surface. Inside, the new self-winding Calibre 7122 marks AP’s first automatic jumping-hour movement, developed with an emphasis on stability and everyday use.

A new F1 season has kicked off, and it’s all change on the track. Fans have to learn a whole new language – it’s goodbye DRS and hello ‘harvest mode’ and ‘super-clipping’ – and there’s even a new team in the shape of Cadillac. Off the track, the role of the pit lane as one of the world’s most-seen showcases for luxury continues with a slew of new designs and the arrival of Breitling to shake things up.

TAG Heuer is the horological title-holder (Official Timekeeper, at least); Richard Mille, the serious flex; and H Moser & Cie offers the left-field alternative. But who are the other watch players in the F1 game?

‘I think there is a lot of beauty to be found in looking closely at forms that might not be the most immediately obvious, paying attention to the unexpected but also seeing a familiar landscape in a new way,’ explains Sophie McKay, founder of BAR Jewellery. Looking at the smaller details within the daily movement of nature is what inspired her new ‘Horizon’ collection.

‘Some favourite [landscapes] for me range from the sweeping motion of the shoreline at the exceptionally beautiful Rhossili Bay to something as simple as creeping vines on a London street fence or handfuls of curly grass found on weekend walks in Epping Forest,’ shares the designer.

Discover BAR Jewellery's 'Horizon' collection

BAR, meaning ‘born from ambition to create responsibility’, boasts collections rooted in elegance, minimalism, and simplicity. Through this, the craftsmanship and the beauty of materiality really shines through. The ‘Horizon’ collection comprises rings and bracelets, to double rings and earrings in silver and gold plated.

Says McKay: ‘My collections tend to lead on naturally from one to the next, I actually enjoy creating to complement last season’s work, rather than trying to reinvent each time. Saying that, I do enjoy some novelty in inspiration and for this collection I drew on the vast, open landscape of Wales that I visit regularly, and where I find myself constantly admiring the horizon line. I also looked at the work of Georgia O’Keeffe and how she reduced mountains, valleys and horizon lines into extremely abstracted forms.’

From looking at the long lines of the valleys and horizons led to longer and leaner shapes in her designs, more than what McKay has explored before, as she tells Wallpaper*, ‘I used a lot of seamless closures which are important to me, so as not to interrupt the flow of the design lines. I developed our first double rings, which flow across two fingers.’

The double ring McKay refers to is the ‘Beyond Ring’ in solid 925 recycled sterling silver, and 18ct gold plating, which captures the meditative feeling of looking beyond into the distance. The twisted texture is wound entirely by hand and wraps around and intertwines between two fingers. Comfort is also really important to McKay, and even with BAR’s biggest hoop users can barely feel them, yet enough impact to make people notice.

‘I usually let ideas develop naturally over time rather than sitting down for weeks focusing on a single concept. I once heard someone describe creativity as catching something flying past you in the wind, and that feels very true of my own process,’ says Mckay. At home, the designer often paints with watercolours with her daughter. It was while playing around with long, flowing brushstrokes McKay started thinking about valleys and mountains.

‘Once an idea begins to take shape, I’ll often sketch in the evening when things are quiet, working out the basics on paper. From there, I develop the idea in the studio, bending wire into the right form and observing it from all angles until everything finally clicks into place. The incredible artisans at the factory I collaborate with in Indonesia replicate my initial designs almost entirely by eye.’

Working directly through wire allows McKay to create small-scale sculptures - a medium which allows her to experiment and let ideas flow organically. ‘I find that a lot of expression can be placed into the wire, there is something special in the sense that every curve and line comes from the hand of one person, capturing the moment of inspiration that made it turn in that exact way. I think that’s why it has stayed with me, it feels like play and it’s a medium that I find incredibly beautiful,’ she notes.

McKay founded BAR after working as a fashion designer in London and Milan for luxury brands. While consulting as a freelance designer, she used her down time to slowly think of shaping a brand. Inspired by McKay’s long-standing interest in vintage jewellery I took a silversmithing course in Hatton Garden. ‘Everything clicked into place and I knew this was something that would stay with me,’ she explains. ‘From that time where I was making jewellery at my kitchen table, I still can’t quite believe I’m here 10 years later.’

As mentioned, Georgia O’Keefe’s paintings are a source of inspiration, also alongside the sculptures of Brancusi, Jose De Rivera and Barbara Hepworth. McKay also has a self-proclaimed obsession with JMW Turner, saying ‘ there is such a perfect balance of purity and drama in his work.’

McKay adds, ‘I definitely aim to leave people feeling inspired. I find my own inspiration in the calm and pure and try to make sure every piece embodies that feeling.’

barjewellery.com