Team GMT Picks: Watches That Cut Through the Noise

If 2025 had a theme, it was the search for something—anything—that felt real. We spent the year drowning in ‘slop’ with AI-generated videos and voices on an internet that felt increasingly like a hall of mirrors. In this context, the Swiss watch industry became a sanctuary for the tangible. It was the year of the analogue insurgence, where wearing a mechanical movement became a protest against the digital drift.

This was also the year of the great decoupling. The speculative fever of the early 2020s—the era of the crypto-watch-bro and the Instagram-fuelled hype cycle—finally finished its collapse. And amidst the ruins, we found a return to dignity. The industry stopped chasing clout and started chasing chronometry again. After a decade of pandering to oversized tastes, the industry (finally!) experienced a shrinkage in the form of a collective realisation that we do not all possess the wrists of deep-sea divers, nor do we need to. This move towards a smaller, more refined silhouette—let’s say the 36mm integrated bracelet, the ultra-thin complication—feels like we’ve stopped wearing watches to be seen from across the street and started wearing them to be understood from across the table.

The heavy hitters, too, staged a coup. Vacheron Constantin’s 270th anniversary was a demonstration of permanence. Their Les Cabinotiers Solaria, a 41-complication monolith, was a reminder that while your smartphone will be obsolete in 18 months, a masterpiece of horology is effectively eternal. Rolex, of course, proved it could still draw blood with the Land-Dweller. Its high-frequency Dynapulse heart was a signal that the crown is still hungry for the horizon.

But the real shift was at the wrist level. We finally buried the ‘flex’, and moved back to proportional corrections, to stone dials that look like geological accidents, and to the guichet—the jumping hour—that demands you actually pay attention to the passing of time. Below, Team GMT shares the releases that stayed with us long after the fairs ended.

Aakriti Jadwani: Louis Vuitton Tambour Convergence

One of the first major releases of the year at LVMH Watch Week 2025, Louis Vuitton’s Tambour Convergence stood out alongside stellar launches such as the Tambour Spin Time Taiko. A guichet-style timepiece with a jumping hour display, the Tambour Convergence arrived at a moment when the complication emerged as one of the year’s defining trends, echoed by Cartier and Jaeger-LeCoultre at Watches and Wonders. Housed in a mirror-polished, reflective rose gold case, the watch strikes a remarkable balance between elegance and technical intrigue. Having visited Louis Vuitton’s watch manufacture La Fabrique du Temps in Geneva and witnessed these cases being hand-polished, my appreciation for the meticulous craftsmanship behind the piece deepened significantly. The Tambour Convergence is a rare example of a high complication paired with a refined, understated design, where mechanics and aesthetics elevate one another rather than compete.

Amrita Lall: Parmigiani Fleurier Tonda PF Minute Rattrapante ‘Arctic Rose’

Parmigiani Fleurier is one of the few brands that can ace visual minimalism without compromising on technical complexity. The new Tonda PF Minute Rattrapante Arctic Rose, which debuted at Dubai Watch Week, stands as proof. The light pink dial (which is stunning!) looks deceptively simple. I love that it hides a little secret—the rose gold hand behind the minute hand that helps you measure one-minute and five-minute intervals upon clicking the pushers.

Fizzah Ansar: H. Moser & Cie. – ‘Pop’ Stone Dials

My top pick has to be the H. Moser & Cie. collection featuring the Pop and Colourful Stone Dials. What stands out most is how these pieces manage to be incredibly bold without ever feeling gimmicky. Moser’s approach to incorporating natural stone and vibrant colour feels deeply artistic and emotional, capturing a ‘very now’ aesthetic that resonates with current design trends. Ultimately, these watches serve as definitive proof that minimalism doesn’t always have to be muted or understated to be effective.

Vritti Jain: Chopard L.U.C. Quattro Platinum Mark IV

I think one of my favourite watches this year was the Chopard L.U.C. Quattro Platinum Mark IV. The powder-blue frosted dial is a visual delight, subtle yet striking, and undeniably refined. I have an affinity towards frosted dials and this was a sweet surprise by Chopard. A perfect dress watch, where technical mastery meets quiet, modern elegance.

Ritika Saundh: Vacheron Constantin Overseas Perpetual Calendar Ultra-Thin

When I reached out to my fellow editors for this piece, I initially thought my heart was set on the Cartier Tank à Guichet revival. Like every other small-watch lover, I’m a sucker for a discreet maison moment. But as I read the team’s insights, I realized that 2025 has been so refreshingly diverse that picking just one felt like an impossible task. 

Then, I met my truth: watchmaking has been so refreshingly diverse this year that I might have posed an unfair question to my team. How does a person pick one watch from all the brilliant releases this year? The answer is simple—you pick the one that speaks to you. Against my predictive rationale, I found myself tethered to the Vacheron Constantin Overseas Perpetual Calendar Ultra-Thin in Pink Gold. At just 8.1mm thick, it’s an architectural impossibility—a high-complication masterclass that refuses to sacrifice the jet-set utility of the line. It honours Vacheron’s 270-year legacy by proving that the best way to move forward is to lean into the technical brilliance you’ve possessed since 1755. And of course, there’s just something so inherently alluring about a moonphase…

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Sukriti Buchar: Tudor Ranger

Amid a year defined by bold experimentation, vibrant dials, and high complications, the Tudor Ranger—with its off-white, parchment-toned dial—offered a moment of  clarity. Experiencing the piece firsthand at Dubai Watch Week, I found its understated design and timeless character to be a refreshing departure from the noise. It was a compelling proof of the old maxim that true elegance resides in simplicity. Of all the releases this year, it is the one that stayed with me, and the one I would choose without hesitation.

By December, the cultural verdict on 2025 was unanimous, that volume is no longer a proxy for value. We’ve collectively exited the era where a timepiece was just a wearable receipt for a fleeting trend—and landed somewhere far more disciplined.

In this new hierarchy of the frantic ‘new’, the most subversive choice is a machine that remains devoted to permanence. A watch is the last truly individual object, a machine that asks for nothing but the movement of your arm to stay alive. And for that, you still need the gears.

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