T3 watch experts give their predictions for Watches and Wonders 2025

For watch lovers, April brings a great many surprises, but the main (and most exciting) event has to be Watches and Wonders. Every year, the world’s watch media descend upon Geneva, Switzerland, to see the latest horological goodies from the world’s top brands.

For 2025, 60 exhibiting Maisons will be showing off their latest and greatest novelties at Watches and Wonders, including the likes of Tudor, Rolex, TAG Heuer, Montblanc, Jaeger-LeCoultre, Zenith and many more. At T3, we’ll be covering the entire event so make sure to stay tuned.

While Watches and Wonders doesn’t start until 1st April, T3’s resident watch experts – Beth Girdler-Maslen (me!), Sam Cross and Alistair Charlton – have been waiting in anticipation and coming up with their own predictions, including launches, discontinuations and themes that you could expect to see.

P.S. If you can’t get enough of Watches and Wonders, check out our 2024 event recap.

Could the Rolex Air-King be no more?

Sam Cross, T3’s News Writer and watch enthusiast is extremely intrigued about Rolex’s potential launches – he’s practically on the plane to Geneva already, where he’ll be on the ground shooting the watches on show next week. When asked about Rolex, he commented that “there’s really no telling what the brand will get up to – particularly given it currently has no need to change tact and chase sales. At a push, I could see the Air-King being removed – it’s not the classiest thing – and I’d love to see an all-steel Sky-Dweller to push that model to new audiences.”

Agreeing with Sam regarding the Air-King, I caught up with Alistair Charlton, freelance technology and automotive journalist who’s been covering watches on T3 for several years. Alistair is a big Rolex fan and has also speculated that the Air-King could receive a cut in size, as he thinks it could be downsized to 36mm.

Other rumours that Alistair is hoping to see come into fruition include an all-titanium Submariner, and acknowledgement of its anniversaries. As he explains “Rolex might acknowledge this being the 70th anniversary of the GMT-Master II – perhaps with a return of the watch with a black-and-red ‘Coke’ dial. Even more enticing is how 2025 is the 80th anniversary of the formidable Datejust. Whatever Rolex does here – perhaps an all-platinum Datejust with Jubilee dial to push your Amex Centurion to breaking point – will surely be a big deal.”

Big bold blues

Each year, it seems that watch brands agree on a main colour of the year, whether that’s shown on the dial, hands or strap. Last year, I saw an abundance of green dials but for 2025, I’m anticipating lots of big bold blues. In particular, I’m expecting to see lots of navy watches and monotone blue timepieces, where every aspect of the watch is in one hue.

Blue isn’t exactly a new or inventive colourway, but sometimes, it’s good to go back to the classics. It isn’t necessarily just navy that we’re expecting to see as Alistair also predicts, “retina-searing dial colours like the turquoise we saw from Tudor in 2024 could continue to pop”.

Smaller cases

During Watches and Wonders, we’re often surprised with new case sizes, particularly in terms of diameter. For example, Bulgari set a record last year when it debuted its Octo Finissimo, the world’s thinnest watch, so there could be another attempt made at this year’s event.

But a trend for 2025 seems to be smaller cases – something I’m very happy about as someone who has small wrists! Sam commented that he’s expecting even smaller cases while Alistair is also “expecting to see a continued push by various brands to smaller case sizes. I think 36mm will quickly become a gender-neutral sweet spot.”

Moonphase and single subdials

So far this year, Sam and I have both noticed an upward trend in single subdials and moonphase complications. I’m a complete sucker for a chronograph and love to see a watch that has at least three counters or subdials on the main dial. But I’ve recently been loving watches with a single subdial – and there have been quite a few launches already this year.

Most single subdial watches just include a seconds counter, but we’ve also been seeing a few using this subdial as a moonphase complication, like this Louis Vuitton collaboration. I’d love to see more of this during Watches and Wonders, and expect brands like Arnold & Son and IWC Schauffhausen getting in on the trend.

TAG Heuer to celebrate its F1 partnership

We often see TAG Heuer coming out with new versions of its Carrera models at Watches and Wonders, and I hope to see this theme continue into this year’s event. But more specifically, we’re hoping to see a few limited edition Formula 1-inspired watches from TAG Heuer, as the brand was recently announced as the official timekeeper for Formula 1.

While TAG Heuer already has an existing Formula 1 collection, I’d love to see new colourways, either on the strap or dial and if we’re right about case size predictions, I’d be eager to see an F1 watch in a smaller case that’s specifically designed for women’s wrists.

Brand anniversaries

Many brands have anniversaries this year, and as Sam points out “anniversary years always make for a good excuse to do something new. A Lange & Söhne, Roger Dubuis, Hublot, Nomos, Rolex, TAG Heuer, Zenith and Vacheron Constantin all have milestones to celebrate, and I’d expect a tasty treat or two from them.”

Stay tuned for T3’s coverage of Watches and Wonders 2025 – and to see if any of our predictions were right!