Watch collecting has become a genuine hobby for a surprising number of celebrities. Fine by me; nothing brings me more joy than perusing Victoria Beckham’s Patek Philippe collection or zooming in on a paparazzi frame just to clock what is on someone’s wrist. And as we slip into the festive season, that rare stretch of unhurried time that forces us to look back on the year’s chaotic blur, I relish in revisiting the watch-spotting moments that cut through: the ones that made you pause, zoom in, or open Chrono24 “just to check.”
Looking back, you'll quickly realise that 2025 has been an especially big year for watches, with that importance fuelled by how women chose to wear them. A Cartier Demoiselle played a supporting role in Taylor Swift’s engagement announcement. An Audemars Piguet Royal Oak turned Rihanna’s post-birth paparazzi shot into a future cult style reference. Even the Louis Vuitton runway played its part. Threading these examples together, though, was a sense that women were wearing watches to telegraph mood, not to tick stereotypical collector boxes.
Indeed, 2025 proved how multifaceted watch style has become. There was no dominant silhouette, no “it-watch” (although the AP Mini came close), no algorithmic monoculture. Just women wearing whatever made sense to them. A rose-gold Royal Oak next to a jewel-laden Patek. A high-jewellery Cartier next to a tiny vintage Piaget. The watch landscape finally looked more like fashion: and watches simply existed as an extension of personal style.
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This was the year of our father, Audemars Piguet. The Mini Royal Oak was everywhere. Yellow gold, white gold, rose gold; stacked, solo, mixed with jewellery. Serena Williams and Simone Biles both wore white gold Minis to the Met Gala, while Aryna Sabalenka stacked her Minis like bangles. Sizing up from a 23 mm Mini to 34 mm was Rihanna, who chose a pink-on-pink Royal Oak for her baby-announcement paparazzi shot — a mother’s blessing. And Dua Lipa recently wore a turquoise-dial 37 mm Royal Oak that became the watch internet’s latest obsession. AP-disciple Hailey Bieber walked the Met Gala carpet in a vintage white-gold Audemars Piguet jewellery watch with a diamond-set bezel and opal dial.
Cartier felt omnipresent this year, largely because it played a crucial role in the most viral picture of 2025. Taylor Swift’s engagement photo immediately re-cemented the Demoiselle as a 2000s style worth revisiting. Kendall Jenner, meanwhile, wore a special-order white-gold Cartier Crash with a salmon dial in an airport bathroom, arguably the most chaotic and therefore most modern way to wear a surrealist icon. And then there was Lana Del Rey in the Baignoire bangle, 2023’s breakout star turned staple among watch-wearers and jewellery lovers alike. The Baignoire bangle is a reminder of what Cartier does better than anyone else: take a simple shape and turn it into jewellery that just so happens to tell the time.
When David Beckham received his knighthood from King Charles, Victoria, debuting her new title, wore a rare Patek Philippe Gondolo Haute Joaillerie 7042/100R, a diamond-and Akoya-pearl-set piece from the maison’s modern catalogue. It felt like a pointed choice, especially given that the late Queen Elizabeth II owned one of the rarest Pateks ever produced: the ref. 4975/1G, a pearl-strung, diamond-laden masterpiece. Hailey Bieber wore a yellow-gold, fully diamond-set vintage Piaget with a pavé dial and bracelet. The kind of jewellery-first watch Piaget did best in the 1980s and 1990s. Dakota Fanning wore an octagonal Cartier high-jewellery watch to the Oscars, a fully pavé white-gold piece with diamonds across the case, dial and bracelet. The shape had an Art Deco cocktail-watch profile, fitting given that cocktail watches are firmly back in the conversation again.
Courtside king Timothée Chalamet delivered one of the year’s most unexpected watch moments. Earlier this year, he was spotted wearing a white-gold, diamond-set Cartier Tank Américaine Mini at the Knicks game, styled like it was nothing more than a bracelet and fully committed to team spirit in a blue-and-orange Chrome Hearts jacket. Kylie Jenner sat next to him in her yellow-gold, diamond-set Panthère, which made the whole scene feel like an unplanned Cartier campaign, both watches fully believable on either wrist. Justin Bieber posted an Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Mini in frosted yellow gold for Father’s Day, and let me reiterate, it was 23 mm in diameter, a size that may not have landed a few years ago. Benny Blanco wore a diamond Jacob and Co. for his wedding to Selena Gomez, which pushed the men-in-jewellery-watches conversation even further. This year, the message has been clear: watch sizes are no longer gendered.
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Watches even made it onto the runway in 2025, most notably at Louis Vuitton’s autumn/winter 2025 and spring/summer 2026 shows, where the Gae Aulenti-designed Monterey from the 1980s returned as a styling piece. It appeared both as a pendant as well as on a chain belt. Marine Serre pushed the idea further with a dress constructed from upcycled watch straps – a runway look that later resurfaced on Hailey Bieber, who paired it with a white-gold Mini Royal Oak to match.