WATCHES & STYLE
Celebrating the Season's Best Jewellery Watches
by Charmian Leong
30 Dec 2025
30 Dec 2025
Subtlety can take a vacation. Lean into high jewellery timepieces that let your horology dazzle as much as the season's festive celebrations.
- BREGUET REINE DE NAPLES CRAZY FLOWER
- VACHERON CONSTANTIN GRAND LADY KALLA
- CARTIER TRESSAGE
- CHOPARD SWAN LAKE
- FRANCK MULLER ROUND TRIPLE MYSTERY
- PATEK PHILIPPE NAUTILUS REF. 5811/1460G-001
- PIAGET RAINBOW AURA
- BVLGARI SERPENTI INFINITI
- VAN CLEEF & ARPELS RUBAN MYSTERIEUX
Breguet’s queenly, egg-shaped icon is positively erupting with exuberance for the maison’s 250th anniversary. The Reine de Naples Crazy Flower reimagines the frangipani as a fully bejewelled bloom, complete with a mobile corolla that shudders playfully with the wearer’s every gesture.
The petals are paved with baguette-cut diamonds, while the concave dial is filled with a mosaic of round and baguette stones. Even the classic Breguet hands have been hand-curved to echo the dial’s curvature. Add in the diamonds on the folding clasp and you arrive at 436 stones totalling 37.2 carats, secured to the wrist by a champagne-toned, satin-effect alligator strap that complements the glow of Breguet gold.
(Related: Breguet's new Reine de Naples collection)
- BREGUET REINE DE NAPLES CRAZY FLOWER
- VACHERON CONSTANTIN GRAND LADY KALLA
- CARTIER TRESSAGE
- CHOPARD SWAN LAKE
- FRANCK MULLER ROUND TRIPLE MYSTERY
- PATEK PHILIPPE NAUTILUS REF. 5811/1460G-001
- PIAGET RAINBOW AURA
- BVLGARI SERPENTI INFINITI
- VAN CLEEF & ARPELS RUBAN MYSTERIEUX
VACHERON CONSTANTIN GRAND LADY KALLA
High jewellery watches are usually the playground of maisons that specialise in sparkle, but Vacheron Constantin has long insisted there is no precious craft beyond its expertise. The Grand Lady Kalla, unveiled last year, was its most dazzling reminder: A modern tribute to the legendary Kallista and Lady Kalla, delivered as a four-piece set comprising a gem-set watch, a jewel piece, a three-row riviere-style bracelet and a sautoir, all designed to be mixed, matched, and generally revelled in.
Now, it returns in three colourful new editions – platinum with diamonds and emeralds, or white gold paired with rubies or sapphires. Each sautoir trades onyx for chrysoprase, blue chalcedony or pink chalcedony to match the hero stone.
(Related: Tick Talk – Time Well Spent)
- BREGUET REINE DE NAPLES CRAZY FLOWER
- VACHERON CONSTANTIN GRAND LADY KALLA
- CARTIER TRESSAGE
- CHOPARD SWAN LAKE
- FRANCK MULLER ROUND TRIPLE MYSTERY
- PATEK PHILIPPE NAUTILUS REF. 5811/1460G-001
- PIAGET RAINBOW AURA
- BVLGARI SERPENTI INFINITI
- VAN CLEEF & ARPELS RUBAN MYSTERIEUX
CARTIER TRESSAGE
Leave it to Cartier to take something as simple as braiding – “tressage” in French – and turn it into a “watchmaking sculpture”. Part cuff, part strap, but all chic, the Cartier Tressage watch is like woven art for the wrist.
This yellow-and-white-gold edition goes full festive with alternating brancards shimmering under snow-set diamonds, echoed again across the dial. A total of 466 brilliant-cut stones illuminate the case and buckle, with another 156 glittering across the white-gold dial. The beige calfskin strap keeps the look airy and elegant, though a black calfskin option is on hand for evenings that call for more drama.
- BREGUET REINE DE NAPLES CRAZY FLOWER
- VACHERON CONSTANTIN GRAND LADY KALLA
- CARTIER TRESSAGE
- CHOPARD SWAN LAKE
- FRANCK MULLER ROUND TRIPLE MYSTERY
- PATEK PHILIPPE NAUTILUS REF. 5811/1460G-001
- PIAGET RAINBOW AURA
- BVLGARI SERPENTI INFINITI
- VAN CLEEF & ARPELS RUBAN MYSTERIEUX
CHOPARD SWAN LAKE
Speaking of unconventional shapes, Chopard, too, pirouettes straight past subtlety and into full fairy-tale splendour with Swan Lake, a secret watch shaped as a diamond-drenched swan in ethical white gold and titanium. White and black diamonds, spessartite garnets and onyx cabochons cover every curve.
There’s more: A gentle turn of the swan’s head unfurls its wings, each constructed from three articulated sections, revealing a petite mother-of-pearl dial powered by the in-house, manual-winding 10.01-C calibre. None of this comes easily, of course. The piece demanded some 900 hours of research, design and artisanal work to give us a wearable ballet.
- BREGUET REINE DE NAPLES CRAZY FLOWER
- VACHERON CONSTANTIN GRAND LADY KALLA
- CARTIER TRESSAGE
- CHOPARD SWAN LAKE
- FRANCK MULLER ROUND TRIPLE MYSTERY
- PATEK PHILIPPE NAUTILUS REF. 5811/1460G-001
- PIAGET RAINBOW AURA
- BVLGARI SERPENTI INFINITI
- VAN CLEEF & ARPELS RUBAN MYSTERIEUX
FRANCK MULLER ROUND TRIPLE MYSTERY
In 1996, in a poetic mood, Franck Muller sought to capture the abstraction of time through a handless dial – just a single rotating disc indicating the hour – creating the brand's first Mystery watch. Two years later came the patented Double Mystery, which added a second disc for the minutes. Variations multiplied over the years, each one a little more theatrical than the last.
Now the idea reaches its most indulgent form yet: the Round Triple Mystery, equipped with rotating discs for hours, minutes and seconds. Creating it wasn’t as easy as stacking on another layer. The seconds disc had to be featherlight to maintain accuracy, leading to a flower-shaped, skeletonised aluminium design that complements the cascades of diamonds adorning the other two discs, bezel, and lugs.
- BREGUET REINE DE NAPLES CRAZY FLOWER
- VACHERON CONSTANTIN GRAND LADY KALLA
- CARTIER TRESSAGE
- CHOPARD SWAN LAKE
- FRANCK MULLER ROUND TRIPLE MYSTERY
- PATEK PHILIPPE NAUTILUS REF. 5811/1460G-001
- PIAGET RAINBOW AURA
- BVLGARI SERPENTI INFINITI
- VAN CLEEF & ARPELS RUBAN MYSTERIEUX
PATEK PHILIPPE NAUTILUS REF. 5811/1460G-001
The Patek Philippe ladies’ Nautilus 7118 references have long embraced generous gemstone dressing, but it appears the 5811 has decided it would like a turn under the disco ball as well. This 41mm white-gold stunner is awash in diamonds: 297 brilliants across the dial, 13 baguette hour markers, 32 baguettes on the bezel, 100 brilliants on the case, and a bracelet boasting 150 baguettes plus 888 brilliants. There is a movement inside – the automatic 26-330 S C – visible through a sapphire back. Not that anyone will be looking away from the front for long.
- BREGUET REINE DE NAPLES CRAZY FLOWER
- VACHERON CONSTANTIN GRAND LADY KALLA
- CARTIER TRESSAGE
- CHOPARD SWAN LAKE
- FRANCK MULLER ROUND TRIPLE MYSTERY
- PATEK PHILIPPE NAUTILUS REF. 5811/1460G-001
- PIAGET RAINBOW AURA
- BVLGARI SERPENTI INFINITI
- VAN CLEEF & ARPELS RUBAN MYSTERIEUX
PIAGET RAINBOW AURA
Piaget’s love of colour often reveals itself in rich slivers of natural stone, and this year’s chromatic Andy Warhol lineup alone spans opal, tiger’s eye, and even green meteorite. But the maison’s brightest high jewellery creation for 2025 refuses to be overshadowed. The Aura returns in full technicolour, dressed in a radiant sweep of sapphires, emeralds, chrysoberyls, tsavorites, and diamonds. Each stone is fastidiously graded for hue and cut before being invisibly set into the 18k white-gold case and bracelet. And because Piaget still cares about horology beneath the spectacle, the Aura runs on the in-house ultra-thin calibre 430P.
- BREGUET REINE DE NAPLES CRAZY FLOWER
- VACHERON CONSTANTIN GRAND LADY KALLA
- CARTIER TRESSAGE
- CHOPARD SWAN LAKE
- FRANCK MULLER ROUND TRIPLE MYSTERY
- PATEK PHILIPPE NAUTILUS REF. 5811/1460G-001
- PIAGET RAINBOW AURA
- BVLGARI SERPENTI INFINITI
- VAN CLEEF & ARPELS RUBAN MYSTERIEUX
BVLGARI SERPENTI INFINITI
The Bvlgari Tubogas has taken on so many forms since its 1948 debut – multiple coils, mixed metals, lavish gem-setting – that it’s almost surprising the brand only mastered the trickiest flourish two years ago: Setting stones into each individual coil. The result was the Serpenti Infiniti collection, and now that Bvlgari has perfected the technique, it’s diving headlong into high jewellery territory. This double-twirl version in white gold is fully set with 1,344 brilliant-cut diamonds totalling 20 carats, creating a wrist-hugging light show that’s as comfortable as it is dramatic.
- BREGUET REINE DE NAPLES CRAZY FLOWER
- VACHERON CONSTANTIN GRAND LADY KALLA
- CARTIER TRESSAGE
- CHOPARD SWAN LAKE
- FRANCK MULLER ROUND TRIPLE MYSTERY
- PATEK PHILIPPE NAUTILUS REF. 5811/1460G-001
- PIAGET RAINBOW AURA
- BVLGARI SERPENTI INFINITI
- VAN CLEEF & ARPELS RUBAN MYSTERIEUX
VAN CLEEF & ARPELS RUBAN MYSTERIEUX
Couture and high jewellery often trade ideas, and here a simple ribbon becomes the muse for Van Cleef & Arpels’ Ruban Mysterieux. Perched above the dial is a 3.72-carat oval-cut diamond so pure you can actually read the time through it. Snow-set diamonds swirl around it, joined by sapphires and emeralds arranged using the maison’s patented Mystery Set technique – each stone seemingly suspended without metal. Together they form a luminous bow that curls gently around the wrist, frozen mid-flutter.
Back
