FOR A SOCIETY THAT CAN look down its nose at an outfit from last year, a restaurant choice from a few months ago or a meme from just last week, it’s cause for thought that we are still so impressed by a substance that hasn’t changed much since the Ancient Egyptians first smelted it more than five thousand years ago.
Not that gold is immune from snobbery – just look at the reactions worldwide to Donald Trump’s maximalist makeover of the Oval Office. Undeterred by any possible similarities – or, who knows, perhaps operating under the subliminal influence of the merchandiser-in-chief – watch brands this year chose to get behind a look that can only be described as “all gold, all the time”. From Rolex to Zenith, gold cases have been joined by shimmering bracelets and burnished, gleaming dials.
With hindsight, the trend had its beginnings last year, most notably with the massive and unapologetically disco revival of the Piaget Polo 79, a weighty bracelet of 18c yellow gold whose signature gadroons ran through dial and case alike. It reminded me of Douglas Adams’ description of the strongest cocktail in the universe, whose effects were like having one’s “brain smashed out by a slice of lemon wrapped around a large gold brick” – ie. a serious party watch.
The festive baton was picked up in 2025 by Jaeger-LeCoultre, moving the party from Studio 54 to Jay Gatsby’s mansion with the Reverso Monoface Tribute ‘Or Deco’ in pink gold. The finely polished case of the iconic ’30s design (with more gadroons; the little stripes running horizontally above and below the dial) is offset by a grained, textured dial, itself set with gold hour markers and knife-sharp hands. The crowning glory is a Milanese mesh bracelet, also in pink gold, which wraps snugly to the wrist and lets the light slip across it enticingly.
The full gold bracelet has always been something of a Rubicon for brands and customers alike. It necessitates so much more raw gold than a mere case alone that not every maker will always offer it, and weighs so much (to say nothing of the attention it garners) that not every collector can pull it off – but having tried it, many find it addictive. Memorably, Audemars Piguet’s Royal Oak Offshore reference 25721BA in solid gold picked up the nickname ‘the Pounder’ for tipping the scales at over 400g, just shy of an imperial pound.
Committing to the look is all the more impressive – or risky, depending on your view – for brands in 2025, given that over the last 12 months, the market price for pure gold has risen by around 40 per cent. Some brands are reported to be scaling back their investment in gold watches, but there was little sign of that at Watches and Wonders this April – and the industry will be hard- pressed to wean itself off precious metals given how reliant it is on them for revenue. Last year, precious-metal watches accounted for 2.7 per cent of Swiss exports by volume, but 40 per cent by value.
You try holding those stats in your head while you’re trying on a Rolex 1908 with its new ‘Settimo’ seven-link yellow gold bracelet, Biver’s Automatique Micro-Rotor with its dazzling level of detail, or Patek Philippe’s angular, faceted 40mm Cubitus in rose gold. There is something mesmerising on a primal level about them. Rolex, which says its bracelet channels “the geometry of elegance”, understands that, with gold, it all hinges on how you use it. Just as the brand has for decades used the fluting of its Day-Date bezel to catch the eye, this new look transformed the 1908 into the show-off watch it needs to be.
Bvlgari, for its part, aims for something like faux-humility with the sandblasted finish to its Octo Finissimo in yellow gold – a finish that extends across the dial yet again – but there is little hiding the sheer glamour of the whole thing. At least with its 5.15mm thick case and ultra-thin bracelet, it doesn’t weigh you down like some others. IWC’s Ingenieur, for example, which leans into the full-gold experience in a way that the technical, tool watch brand has really never done before, this year introduced a smaller 35mm case for the Ingenieur, which might be the sweet spot, particularly in gold, and it’s this model that gets the on-trend gold dial, too, as opposed to the black dial of its 40mm sibling.
Everywhere you look, the gilded look relies on a careful hand in the design studio. None of these watches could fairly be described as subtle, but they all have a delicacy of execution that keeps them on the right side of the line between glamorous and gaudy. It’s in the sharpness of the lines and the fine contrasts between textured surfaces. A. Lange & Sohne’s Odysseus Honeygold shows the principle perfectly – hardly any two shapes on the bracelet are identical and all have meticulously bevelled edges. Up close you’ll see the circular brushing of the minute track, the mirror polish of the hour markers and the fluted indentations of the chocolate-brown dial. I’m sorry if I’m starting to sound like a fairytale character, drooling over his vault of treasure; it might be the effect of spending time around so much of the shiny stuff. There is craftsmanship at work, as always, but it also might just be the voice of millennia whispering in your ear: you want a gold watch because, on some level, it’s in our DNA.
This story appears in the Winter 2025 issue of Esquire Australia, on sale now. Find out where to buy the issue here.
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