Many years ago, I gifted my husband a Bvlgari chronograph he loved but rarely wore. When I asked why, he said, “There’s too much going on for me to read the time.”
I started to pay attention and realised that, in the world of luxury watches, telling the time is often not the most important thing. Instead, artisanal craft, unusual displays, mechanical gymnastics, celestial narratives and sculptural form have taken centre stage.
But is this really wrong? Not really. Mechanical watches lost their necessity the moment the smartphone became universal, and everyone involved in the industry knows it. What we are seeing now is not decline, but repositioning. Today’s luxury watch sits somewhere between architecture, kinetic sculpture and jewellery, where purpose has shifted from function to meaning. It signals taste and identity, embodies craftsmanship, and offers a kind of mechanical poetry, something you engage with, wind, observe and live alongside.
That is what draws crowds to Watches & Wonders each year. Not accuracy, but form, movement and drama. Bridges shaped like suspension structures, dials treated as canvases, complications pursued for intellectual or aesthetic pleasure rather than utility. The language itself gives it away: construction, layers, depth, finishing. This is not the way we speak about tools, this is how we speak about art.
Van Cleef & Arpels’ Lady Rencontre Céleste and Lady Retrouvailles Célestes tell the Qixi legend of star-crossed lovers Vega and Altair, who were separated by the Milky Way. They depict their annual journey across a celestial bridge formed by birds to get together.
The watch as an object of contemplation has a long pedigree. The Pomander Watch of 1505 by Peter Henlein is one of the earliest examples of a timepiece conceived as an object of art and luxury rather than as precision instrument. The earliest recorded wristwatch, the Breguet Wristlet, created for Queen Caroline Murat of Naples in 1810, was designed as a high-jewellery ornament rather than a utilitarian device.
Today, that spirit is thriving. A prime example is Van Cleef & Arpels’ Lady Rencontre Céleste and Lady Retrouvailles Célestes. Here, the watch becomes a canvas for the legend of Vega and Altair. The dial is a miniature world of enamelling, gem-setting and moving elements.
Roger Dubuis Brocéliande Dawn and Twilight: The rotation of the micro-rotor serves as the pulse of the forest, inviting the wearer to contemplate a miniature, Arthurian world rather than the passage of hours.
Equally poetic is the Roger Dubuis Brocéliande Dawn and Twilight duo. These watches reimagine the wrist as a dual-sided canvas of storytelling, combining a skeletonised micro-rotor with sculptural vines and mother-of-pearl leaves. In both, the movement becomes a kinetic landscape.
Patek Philippe’s Ref. 5249R-001 “The Crow and the Fox” pushes this even further. Rather than offering a constant display, it reveals time on demand through an automaton inspired by a 1958 Louis Cottier pocket watch. When activated, the fox marks the hours while the crow releases cheese to indicate the minutes. Time is performed; the watch becomes a stage.
L-R: Patek Philippe “The Crow and the Fox” is the first automaton wristwatch in the brand’s modern history. In the Cartier Tortue Panthère Métiers d’Art time is pushed into the background, read only through discreet hands hovering above the gem-set rain.
Cartier, as ever, treats shape as content. The Tortue Panthère Métiers d’Art transforms the case into a three-dimensional canvas, using champlevé enamel to depict a panther behind a curtain of rain. With over 80 hours of enamelling and multiple firings, the emphasis is entirely on the theatrical effect. There are no traditional markers to guide the eye. Time is present, but deliberately subdued.
Gucci’s G-Timeless Métiers d’Art collection translates the Maison’s silk scarf motifs into horological form. From the four new models, the one inspired by the Maison’s archival Animalia scarf prints from the late 1970s is my favourite. A mother-of-pearl dial housed in a rose gold case with a knurled bezel shows a tiger – also in rose gold – among rich foliage. The scene is enhanced by delicate micro-painting beneath the surface, creating a “blazing sun” effect through the stone’s iridescence. The diamond-set flying tourbillon at 12 o’clock is the mechanical pulse that brings the artwork to life and invites contemplation.
The Bengal tiger in this Gucci’s G-Timeless Métiers d’Art Animalia is a recurring motif in the Maison. The design originates in the eponymous scarf collections from Gucci’s archives, where the tiger often appears paired with vibrant, floral backgrounds.(*)
From storytelling to structure, Jacob & Co.’s Bugatti Tourbillon Sapphire Crystal presents itself as a transparent sculpture. Carved from solid blocks of sapphire, the case reveals a miniature V16 engine with 16 titanium pistons firing in sequence. The time display, inspired by automotive gauges, requires interpretation rather than a glance. The engine is the protagonist.
Then there is Trilobe, which has moved away from traditional ways of telling time and instead, applies haute horlogerie craftsmanship in a unique, creative way. Trilobe’s handless display uses three rotating rings, turning time into continuous motion rather than fixed indication. The Trente-Deux Secret Edition goes further, recreating a personalised night sky through over 1,600 printed constellations. Each dial is a frozen moment in the cosmos. Time is no longer measured so much as experienced.
L-R: Jacob & Co.’s Bugatti Tourbillon Sapphire Crystal is carved from blocks of lab-grown corundum, with the case requires more than 800 hours of machining to achieve its complex geometry. In the Trilobe Trente-Deux Secret, each dial is rendered as a delicate constellation of stars, reflecting a specific date, time and place that holds personal meaning for the customer.
Across all these examples, a pattern emerges. Legibility is often reduced, sometimes intentionally. What replaces it is narrative, craft, emotion. The watch becomes something to look at, not merely to consult.
If these timepices are anything to go by, one might even say that the luxury watch is the only tool whose function has become irrelevant, and that is precisely why it survives.
Author: Julia Pasarón
A more in-depth version of this article will be published in the 2026 edition of I-M TIME, on sale with the summer issue of I-M Inquisitive Minds.
Discover more Watches & Wonders 2026 novelties in our W&W Highlights article.
(*) Gucci images: Art Director – Baron & Baron, Photographer – Raymond Meier
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