Each week, EWC will be gathering horological industry news, cultural conversations and moments surrounding our favorite topic: timepieces. Happy Friday; here’s what’s on our watch. 

This week's new watches

Breitling debuted a gold capsule collection in advance of the holiday season, featuring five different models in red gold cases and new color combinations. The capsule collection wraps warm red gold cases around three Navitimer models in 32mm, 36mm, and 41mm diameters, and two Premier models in 40mm and 42mm. 

Each model features a dial color combination that has not been used before in previous models. The Premier B01 Chronograph 42 has a dark navy blue dial and red gold hands and indices, with two subdials for the 30-minute totalizer and running seconds and an automatic Breitling Manufacture Caliber 01, while the Premier B09 Chronograph has a dark green dial with red gold hands and indices, and a slimmer profile due to its manually-wound B09 caliber. 

The Navitimers vary from the B01 Chronograph 41 with a reverse panda configuration of brown dial and white subdials and matches the size of original Navitimers from the 1950s. It features a Manufacture Caliber 01. The Navitimer Automatic 36 has a single-color green dial that coordinates with its green alligator strap, and an in-house automatic Caliber 17 with a time-only display. The Navitimer 32 is similarly a single-color dial, all brown in this model, coupled with diamond hour markers and a very slim and functional Breitling Caliber 77 in its proprietary SuperQuartz technology. Both of the time-only pieces feature the instantly recognizable Breitling beaded bezel. The 32mm model is not available in the US.

The new Roger Dubuis Hommage La Placide Perpetual Calendar Biretrograde is a look back at 30 years of the history of the Roger Dubuis brand and its eponymous founder. The movement features both new and remanufactured components in its in-house calibre 1472, a combination of their innovative RD 14 and RD72 calibers. This combined movement has many signature components such as a swan neck regulator for precise setting and shock resistance, original Roger Dubuis balance springs, a perpetual calendar with day, date, month, leap year, and moonphase displays that contains 50% remanufactured components that were done completely in-house. The month and leap year are displayed in the same counter due to an innovation in the combination of two wheels to display them together. 

In addition to the technical complexity of the movement, it is highly decorated with 15 different decoration techniques and has achieved a Poinçon de Geneve certification. This is all topped off with a dial with Mr. Roger Dubuis’ favorite Biretrograde display, in which each of the calendar hands on either side of the dial move through their cycle and then snap back to the starting position when the month or week is complete. The stunning timepiece is encased in a 38mm pink gold case and comes fitted with a blue strap that echoes the watery blue of the Lake Geneva-inspired dial.

Make it so: In Geneva this week, Czapek introduced its Time Jumper model, which has a very unconventional time display and its new Calibre 10 that celebrates 10 years of the revival of the brand. This fresh take on the simplest features of a watch - time only, displaying just the hours and minutes - does so in an unexpected way, with a central jump hour display with a 24-hour register and a minute track on a rotating outer peripheral ring. The case shape is reminiscent of a flying saucer and features a half-hunter case, allowing the wearer to flip open the guillochéd top case to examine the decorated bridges inside. 

Ming introduced its first sports GMT with the 37.11 Odyssey, leveraging their design language and attention to detail that they presented in their previous sports model, the 37.09 Bluefin, to present a functional, attractive, and durable timepiece.

With its grade 2 titanium case, the 37.11 Odyssey is incredibly lightweight at only 42 grams for the case itself, and also features a bidirectional rotating dial with 24 timezones. The time can also be set underwater, for those who spend a lot of time swimming while traveling, and there are multiple sources of lume on the indices, crown, hands, and day/night indicator, assuring legibility no matter where or when you find yourself in your travels. It comes with three different strap options: rubber, integrated bracelet, or their own Polymesh, allowing the wearer to personalize it to their own liking.

Horological Happenings

At their flagship store in New York City, Hermès is presenting Hermès Time Suspended, an exhibition of the depth and breadth of the maison’s watchmaking. The immersive experience was conceived by artist Sarah-Anaïs Desbenoit, who also designed the original experience debuted at Watches and Wonders in Geneva earlier this year. The exhibition demonstrates the technical watchmaking prowess of the maison with displays of its complicated watches and demonstrations by a watchmaker, stunning examples of their fine jewelry watches, and a deep dive into the artistic craftsmanship of their dialmaking, including live demonstrations of their unique leather marquetry. 

In conjunction with the exhibition, Hermès released three new Arceau Jour de Casting watches featuring charming portraits of dogs and displaying expertise in wood marquetry, engraving, miniature hand-painting, and enameling. 

The exhibition will be presented at the Hermès Madison Avenue Flagship through November 22.

Colloquially known as the “Oscars of watches, the 25th GPHG Prize ceremony took place in Geneva on November 13. Highlights of the prize winners include the grand prize, the Aiguille d’Or, going to Breguet for its Classique Souscription 2025 watch, the fan favorite Fam Al Hut, Möbius taking the Audacity Prize, and the M.A.D. Editions M.A.D.2 Green taking home the Petite Aiguille Watch Prize. A full list of winners can be found at the GPHG’s official website. 

Phillips in conjunction with Bacs & Russo announced record-setting auction results at its Decade One (2015–2025) Auction in Geneva. Overall, the 207-lot auction achieved what the house says is the highest total for a watch auction ever, bringing in CHF 66,815,725 (US$83,018,538) and selling a Patek Philippe Ref. 1518 for US$17,631,075, making it the most expensive vintage Patek to sell at auction. 

Not content to rest on this result, Phillips readies themselves for their next sale, The New York Watch Auction: XIII on 6-7 December, featuring iconic timepieces from Philippe Dufour and F.P. Journe, amongst many others.

The brass tax

Switzerland and the United States have announced a deal to reduce the high 39% tariff rates imposed by the US on Swiss imports to 15%. The 39% tariff caused some chaos in the Swiss watch industry when it was announced earlier this year, with brands rushing to ship watches before the tariffs took effect, and brands raising prices and bracing for economic uncertainty with a large tariff being imposed by one of its largest export markets. In an interview on CNBC, a US Trade Representative said that an agreement would include Swiss companies “essentially” building some manufacturing in the United States.

NORQAIN announced its partnership with the National Hockey League (NHL), making them the Official Luxury Sports Watch of the league. The partnership is the culmination of a long connection with hockey. Their co-founder, Mark Streit, is a former captain of an NHL team, and they count a number of current and former NHL players amongst their investors and partners. 

The brand is also no stranger to the wider world of sports, with partner collaborations such as their Wild One Skeleton Stan the Man Limited edition released earlier this year with tennis legend Stan Wawrinka. The NHL partnership will begin yielding collaboration watches in 2026, but the partnership will result in the brand being immediately featured in televised NHL games.

Citizen Watch Company sold a minority stake in its Swiss movement maker, La Joux-Perret, to LVMH. The movement maker has already been supplying movements to some of LVMH’s brands like TAG Heuer, and the two companies are heralding the deal as a strategic partnership that will further strengthen the ongoing development of the Swiss watch industry. 

Fossil announced a deal to restructure its $150 million in debt as part of its ongoing effort to continue a turnaround plan. The group previously announced plans to potentially enter a Chapter 11 bankruptcy restructuring in the US, but was able to structure an agreement with its creditors to both adjust its current debt to longer terms while also raising $32.5 million in operating funds to bolster its turnaround plan.