Watch News: All the latest from the world of horology

Watch brands like to torture an anniversary, but as arbitrary as ‘270th’ might sound, Vacheron Constantin has every right to celebrate. This never-ending calendar version of their sportiest range (in white gold and burgundy lacquer) is just part of 2025’s celebrations covering the marque’s every specialism.

Marking what counts (arguably) as Swiss watchmaking’s greatest ‘activation’ of 2025 is this brilliant fusion of sport, style, collaboration and global engagement. We’ve deemed Breitling’s newly unveiled NFL-wide partnership to be best represented by the coolest-possible collaboration (well, in our humble opinion, anyway), bearing the green logo of the New York Jets. But ultimately it always comes down to the technology: crafted from Breitlight carbon composite, a chronometer-certified SuperQuartz movement means every touchdown is to touch.

Celebrating 20 years of a remote art nouveau villa, buried in the coniferous slopes of the Jura Mountains, housing a robot that mimics your wrist’s movements as you brush your teeth, sure sounds strange –especially when it involves three local watchmakers that epitomise the height of horology (Chopard, but also Parmigiani and Bovet). But it’s there where ‘chronometer’ precision is proven beyond doubt, along with Poinçon de Genève finish and COSC robustness, and it’s this watch that epitomises such exactitude.

All eyes were on Sonny Hayes aka Brad Pitt in F1: The Movie this year, wearing his custom version of IWC’s big Ingenieur redux. Flying below the radar, however, was a time-only evolution of 2023’s big ‘Top Gun’ Pilot’s chronograph range in ceramic, colour-checked by Pantone. The sandy ceramic is inspired by the landscape that surrounds Maverick aka Tom Cruise’s air base.

Gradué? Fumé? Ombré? Whatever your nomination, the gradation of colour on a dial is the trend that refuses to fade (sorry). Omega’s dressier ‘Aqua Terra’ version of its Seamaster diving watch was the choice of Daniel Craig’s James Bond. So this rakish lacquer dial in turquoise on Royal Navy-worthy rubber seems particularly fit for (secret) service.

This is the first moonphase-function watch to come from Tudor. Which, given the brand’s nostalgic bent – splitting from mothership Rolex in 2012 and setting out its stall as military-spec diving watchmaker non pareil – might seem random going into its 100th year. But Tudor’s just cut the ribbon on a top-spec, semi-automated factory in Le Locle, so the unexpected is exactly the way they should be going, and the champagne colouration is entirely befitting.

It shocked every which #watchnerd when the Cubitus dropped this time last year: is it a Nautilus evo, is it a red rag to purists, is it a Patek at all? But now the vapours have wafted, it makes sense. And in calmed-down 40mm guise, even more so. The reference 7128/1R-001 in rose gold and that sumptuous brown sunburst dial is pure cosmopolitan cool.

The 1970s are no longer the decade that taste forgot, as demonstrated by Tissot’s revisiting its geometrically ‘integrated’ bracelet ‘PRX’ sportsman, and now taking a very long journey to Japan and its popular manga (comic) culture. In tribute to the 50th anniversary of ‘UFO Robot Grendizer’ created by Go Nagai in 1975, this new 1,975-piece edition is a darkly cosmic homage to a cult superhero, and in highly affordable fashion – especially bearing in mind the top-flight antimagnetic mechanics beating within.

Is it a Swatch? Is it a Blancpain? And shouldn’t they have actually called it ‘Fifty-One Fathoms’, given that it’s based on Swatch’s revolutionary, all-robotically made mechanical Sistem 51 (just 51 components, to make it clear)? Well, whatever it’s called, as a follow-up to Swatch’s brilliant, internet-breaking MoonSwatch collab with its other Swatch Group stable-mate, Omega, this plastic-fantastic interpretation of the modern diving watch’s ‘ur’ disruptor of 1953 – which was good down to 50 fathoms (that’s roughly 90 dizzying metres below the waves), introducing the rotating bezel as we know it – adds another interesting function: bio-ceramic case technology and an ocean-conservancy charity.

This orange-accented ‘Grid’ iteration of Nomos’s smash-hit of 2025 is our favourite of three new ‘Night Navigation’ colourways, all of which speak of how encouraged the West German watchmaker feels about its breakaway from all the Bauhaus austerity that made its name after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Multi-timezone functionality never felt less confusing, let alone more fun.

The ‘L1.650.4.92.6’ is our favourite reference of the Swatch Group’s ‘just right’ brand, perched perfectly between Tissot and Omega’s own numbers. ‘Conquest’ was the first Longines name protected by the Swiss Federal Intellectual Property Office in 1954. It says everything of its purity of design that barely anything has changed since.