The Lunar New Year beckons, and with it the coming of the Year of the Snake. As has become practice, brands are creating and releasing a host of special, often limited, editions themed around the year’s Zodiac sign. Some of the most luxurious come naturally from the realm of fine watchmaking. This year is no different, with a host of special snake-themed watches to ring in the 2025 Lunar New Year.
Some creations, like those from Jaeger-LeCoultre and IWC Schaffhausen, are pleasingly familiar. Classical, beautiful interpretations of an animal theme in line with what these manufactures and brands have introduced before. For Jaeger-LeCoultre, that’s precise engraving on a black enamelled side of its iconic Reverso model; and for IWC Schaffhausen that’s a gold rotor shaped and detailed after the Zodiac animals subtly hidden on the back of the watch.
There is daring, meanwhile, from brands such as Franck Muller and Vacheron Constantin. The former has taken the Lunar New Year as the occasion to reveal a brand new, asymmetrical case shape dubbed the Silhouette CX; while the latter is refreshing and restarting its 12-year Zodiac cycle with a new series of métiers d’art designs.
Here, Vogue’s edit of snake timepieces with a stylish, serpentine allure.
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Dior Grand Soir Year of the Snake
The house of Dior has chosen its Grand Soir collection as the creative canvas upon which it explores the signs of the lunar calendar. For 2025’s Year of the Snake, a romantic toile de jouy dial with a snake slithering through a garden of rose gold and mother-of-pearl flowers, leaves and butterflies.
Dior Grand Soir Year of the Snake 36mm in stainless steel and rose gold with diamonds, price on request, limited to 38
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Franck Muller Silhouette CX Snake
Inspired by the snake’s spirit of transformation—shedding its skin as renewal, and all—Franck Muller’s co-founder and master case maker Vartan Sirmakes embarked on a brand new shape for the Swiss brand. Enter the Silhouette CX, a curved and asymmetrical shape that evolves on icons of the house such as the Curvex CX, Vanguard and Cintrée Curvex.
The challenge of creating this asymmetrical case shape extended even to the sapphire crystal, which is ingeniously extended to the lugs of the case to afford a more generous view of the dial. The point of which is to take in Franck Muller’s mysterious, beguiling take on the snake: a snow-set emerald ophidian slithering just out of sight.
Franck Muller Silhouette CX Snake in rose gold with emeralds, $66,000, limited to 28 and exclusive to Asia Pacific
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Vacheron Constantin Métiers d'Art The Legend of the Chinese Zodiac Year of the Snake
12 years ago, Vacheron Constantin debuted its Legend of the Chinese Zodiac series of métiers d’art watches. Inspired by Swiss and Chinese culture meeting, an aspect of the manufacture’s history, this initial 12-year series took inspiration from the arts of Chinese paper cutting and découpage.
Now, the Swiss manufacture is starting a new Zodiac cycle with a different aesthetic. This new series will display a diversity of rare craftsmanship and techniques that the brand has honed to a high degree. This Year of the Snake model, offered in two references—platinum or rose gold—features painstaking miniature and enamelling work.
The platinum or rose gold snakes take three days of work: to sculpt and detail by hand, and to apply miniature paint and patina to create texture and relief. The decorated background, meanwhile, combines grand feu and flux-coated miniature opaque enamelling—the latter an ancestral Geneva technique—to craft a vista with fine, nuanced colours that are simultaneously diffused and distinct.
Vacheron Constantin Métiers d’Art The Legend of the Chinese Zodiac Year of the Snake in platinum, price on request, limited to 25
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Harry Winston Chinese New Year Automatic 36mm
The house of Harry Winston started a tradition in 2016 of celebrating Chinese New Year with special timepieces. For 2025, the house leaned into Chinese culture’s appreciation for the snake. Unlike the Western tradition where they are feared, snakes figure greatly in Chinese mythology, and are considered “little dragons” and a symbol of intelligence and wealth.
Winston’s charming take on the snake is an amiable, almost shy figure that peeks out from behind luscious vegetation. The snake on the dials of the watch, limited to just eight pieces and alternatively offered in a white gold version, is engraved and lacquered to create the look of shadowed scales.
Its verdant garden landscape, meanwhile, is made with hand-painted leaves accented with emeralds and green sapphires; and floral bouquets of spessartite garnets and diamonds.
Harry Winston Chinese New Year Automatic 36mm in rose gold with diamonds, emeralds, spessartite garnets and green sapphires, price on request, limited to 8
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Hublot Spirit of Big Bang Year of the Snake
Consider Hublot’s interpretation of the snake a darker, more sensuously coiled one. The Spirit of Big Bang Year of the Snake is cased in ceramic, with a ceramic bezel engraved to create a scaled pattern. True to the brand’s creative philosophy of high-tech fusion, the scale motif is also continued down to the rubber strap which is made from a single piece of the material and inventively embossed to create a velvety finish.
The serpent also manifests on the openworked dial as a three-dimensional gold-plated and laser-engraved figure that coils around the three chronograph counters of the watch, a design feature that frames the timepiece’s horological functions.
Hublot Spirit of Big Bang Year of the Snake in ceramic, $49,300, limited to 88
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IWC Schaffhausen Portofino Automatic Moon Phase 37 Year of the Snake
IWC Schaffhausen’s special edition for the Lunar New Year is fittingly auspicious in palette, with a burgundy dial and gold-plated hands and appliqués. See, for instance, the Moon Phase display with golden moon and stars, a complication which has been so refined by the Schaffhausen manufacture that it promises to deviate from actual orbit by a day only after 122 years of use. (That’s another 10 whole cycles of the Zodiac.)
And like they’ve done before, IWC Schaffhausen’s special model features a hidden detail revealed through the display caseback: a solid gold, snake-shaped oscillating rotor that drives the timepiece’s automatic movement.
IWC Schaffhausen Portofino Automatic Moon Phase 37 Year of the Snake in stainless steel, $13,000, limited to 500
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Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso Tribute Enamel 'Snake'
The two-sided design of Jaeger-LeCoultre’s Reverso makes it a perfect canvas for a bit of artistic expression. In the Reverso Tribute Enamel ‘Snake’, deep and luscious black grand feu enamel is applied to the verso side of the case, then engraved by hand to create a cloud-wreathed snake.
The details of the snake are hand-drawn with black rhodium, the clouds are sandblasted to create a matte sense of contrast, and an engraver devotes around 80 hours—using an array of chisels—to carve out the figure without damaging the enamel.
Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso Tribute Enamel ‘Snake’ in rose gold, price on request, limited and made to order
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Longines Conquest Heritage Year of the Snake Edition
Dial-side, Longines’s limited edition watch for the Year of the Snake features propitious colours. A sunray gradient red domed dial is paired with gilt hands and indexes—a palette that is as festive as it is wearable even past January.
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Longines Conquest Heritage Year of the Snake Edition
The reverse of this model, however, is what’s truly special. To honour the lunar Year of the Snake, Longines has tapped Chinese artist Wu Jian’an to collaborate on reinterpreting the famed Chinese folk tale ‘Stealing the Immortal Herb’, which comes from ‘The Legend of the White Snake’. To that end, Wu created a contemporary expression of the fable in the form of a snake clutching a Lingzhi mushroom, which is intricately engraved on the caseback.
Longines Conquest Heritage Year of the Snake Edition in stainless steel, $4,300, limited t0 2,025
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Swatch Golden Red Bamboo, and Blue and Golden Lithe Dancer
Swatch has introduced a pair of artful designs that celebrate the Year of the Snake, with vibrant dials that depict geometric serpents slithering through bamboo.
The daintier Golden Red Bamboo model comes from the Skin Irony collection, which is the brand’s thinnest line of watches. It is cased in golden PVD-coated stainless steel, with an embroidered strap. The Blue and Golden Lithe Dancer, the larger (and unwieldily named) of the two, meanwhile has a 47mm bio-sourced case, and a day-date function.
Swatch Golden Red Bamboo in stainless steel, $275; and Blue and Golden Lithe Dancer, $182
