A ladies’ timepiece used to be a bit of an afterthought for many watchmakers. Going by the releases and design trends this year at Watches and Wonders, the world’s biggest horological showcase, that is surely no longer. Pursuits of beauty, poetry and (surprise!) usefulness are making the ladies’ category perhaps the most exciting it’s ever been. In this series of Vogue Watch Reports, we curate 2025’s most noteworthy releases from Geneva. Here, beautifully and thoughtfully crafted bracelet watches make a statement.
In fine watchmaking, everything is about the details. And not just on the inside movements, mind you, but even the slightest nuance of how a watch is shaped in the right places to sit comfortably on the wrist. One area of such minute detail that is getting a lot of attention this year is bracelets. Particularly, watchmakers that have introduced brand-new bracelet styles that are sure to define and influence the rest of their collections for years to come.
The biggest news is surely that of Swiss giant Rolex releasing a new collection—its first in 13 years. Enter the Land-Dweller, the brand’s take on an integrated bracelet design. In the same way that the Datejust was launched in 1945 with the now-iconic Jubilee bracelet, the Land-Dweller also debuts the brand-new Flat Jubilee.
The five-row design features flat links, which are satin-brushed with polished chamfered edges on the outer links and mirror-polished inner links. Elegant, yet with a grounded spirit that lives up to its Land-Dweller name.
Jaeger-LeCoultre has had an icon in its Reverso for almost a century. In all of its forms, it has been almost exclusively styled with leather straps. This year, the Swiss watchmaker is introducing a revelatory new reference, the Reverso Tribute Monoface ‘Or Deco’ with the collection’s first—and, at the moment, only—Milanese bracelet. The entire design of the watch, from case to dial to bracelet, is crafted in a monochromatic palette of pink gold. Crafting this bracelet called for no less than 16m of pink gold threads, which are woven to form a dense flat mesh that is then hand-soldered to seal without pins. The result: a gold bracelet that’s as supple as a second skin.
At Piaget, the focus this year is on shapes. That’s underscored by its big release of 2025, the new trapeze-shaped Sixtie collection of jewellery watches. The design references trapezoidal jewellery and sautoir watches from the maison’s ’60s and ’70s archives, and updates it for modern tastes.
The trapeze is obvious enough on the shape of the case, but where it really shines as a subtle, complete and thoughtful detail is in its newly developed five-link bracelet. The outermost links are shaped like halves of a trapeze, and the middle links like rounded rectangles so that every part of the bracelet has curves that extend the silhouette of the watch throughout the wrist.
Vogue Singapore’s June 2025 ‘Gold’ issue is available on newsstands and online.
