At the 2026 Cannes Film Festival, @chopard once again occupied its familiar place between cinema, high jewellery and watchmaking.

For the opening ceremony, the Maison brought its Red Carpet Collection to one of cinema’s most closely watched stages. Seen up close, the collection showed Chopard at its most expressive, where gemstones, colour and sculptural forms become part of the festival’s glitz and glamour.

Chopard’s relationship with cinema also extends to the Trophée Chopard, awarded each year to two rising stars since 2001. This year, the honour went to Odessa A’zion and Connor Swindells, continuing the Maison’s annual celebration of emerging talent at Cannes.

Away from the flashbulbs, Chopard’s Gentleman’s Evening turned the spotlight to high watchmaking, opening with a masterclass in chiming watches led by Karl-Friedrich Scheufele, Co-President of Chopard, and Karl-Fritz Scheufele, Chief of Staff – Craft, Digital & Experience, and co-hosted by watch journalist Frédéric Brun. In addition to the L.U.C Strike One, the L.U.C Full Strike and L.U.C Grand Strike watches on display included some of Chopard’s most serious expressions of contemporary watchmaking, from the L.U.C Quattro Spirit 25 Straw Marquetry edition to the Zagato Lab One Concept in titanium and L.U.C Heritage Grand Cru with baguette-cut diamonds.

Now in its 28th year as official partner of the Cannes Film Festival, Chopard’s presence on the Croisette extends beyond the red carpet, bringing together cinematic glamour, high jewellery, fine watchmaking and the unmistakable atmosphere of the festival into one world. ...

As @iwcwatches mark 90 years of Pilot’s Watches, the new Venturer Vertical Drive represents one of its most radical rethinks of the genre yet. Created in partnership with VAST, the private space company working to build the first commercial space station, the watch has been engineered specifically around the demands of human spaceflight.

That means moving away from some of the most familiar Pilot’s Watch codes. Gone are the Arabic numerals, the triangle at 12 and, most notably, the crown. In micro-gravity environments, even a small snag or tear in a spacesuit can become a serious risk, so IWC has replaced the crown with a bezel rotation system and a rocker-style mode selector that allow the wearer to wind or set the watch more securely — even while wearing bulky gloves.

The execution feels suitably futuristic too. The 44mm case combines white ceramic with a black Ceratanium bezel, paired with a white rubber strap. On the dial, skeletonised white hands stand out against the black background, displaying both mission time on a 24-hour scale and local time. Inside is the IWC-manufactured Calibre 32722, an automatic movement designed to wind with the wearer, even in micro-gravity.

📷: @sidney_teo

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Some watch collections are built around status, rarity or the pursuit of universally recognised icons. The Patrick Parrish Collection feels very different...

Now live on @loupethis, the 41-lot sale brings together vintage watches shaped by function, experimentation, industrial design and personal fascination. A New York-based design dealer, gallerist and collector, @patrick_parrish_studio has spent much of his career championing unusual and often overlooked objects — an eye that clearly carries into this collection.

Carefully assembled over decades, the collection reflects Parrish’s interest in objects that solved unusual problems, captured the ambition of their era or simply refused to follow the obvious path.

Highlights include the Yema Bipole Duopoly Titanium, believed to be the first watch design created by Richard Mille; the Jaeger-LeCoultre Memovox “Speed Beat GT” ref. E873; the Omega Seamaster 120 “Deep Blue” ref. 166.073; and a Breitling Chrono-Matic from the dawn of automatic chronograph development.

Across the collection, vintage watches become a lens for 20th-century design and technological optimism — shaped by curiosity, nonconformity and the instinct to look beyond consensus.

Lots from the Patrick Parrish Collection are now live on Loupe This, with closings beginning this week.

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IAMWATCH is back.

Following its 2024 debut, the watch gathering returns this year with its focus placed firmly on the people behind the watches.

Taking place from 12–15 November 2026 at The Singapore EDITION, IAMWATCH 2026 will bring together 50 watchmakers and friends of @thehourglass_official for an intimate four-day programme dedicated to collectors, enthusiasts and the wider culture of contemporary watchmaking.

The lineup includes some of independent watchmaking’s most recognisable names, from Kari Voutilainen, Rexhep Rexhepi and Andreas Strehler to Max Büsser, Konstantin Chaykin, Raúl Pagès and Jean-Claude Biver, among many others.

At a time when watch collecting can often be shaped by scarcity, spectacle and distance, IAMWATCH offers something more direct: the chance to encounter watchmaking through its makers, their stories and the conversations that happen around the watches themselves.

Find out more about IAMWATCH 2026 via @iamwatch_official ...

@mbandf brings a new dimension to one of its most celebrated creations: the LM Perpetual, now reimagined in an ultra-limited Chromatic series defined by colorful gemstone bezels.

First introduced in 2015, the LM Perpetual remains one of MB&F’s most important horological statements, built around Stephen McDonnell’s groundbreaking reinterpretation of the perpetual calendar. The new Chromatic Editions frame that complex calibre with baguette-cut gemstones, without altering the watch’s original proportions.

The two white gold editions feature blue or purple sapphires sourced from Madagascar and Sri Lanka, while the rose gold version is paired with Mozambican red rubies. Each bezel is hand-set in Geneva by STG Creation with an elegant line of 48 baguette-cut gemstones. The new pieces also introduce color-matched PVD-treated hands, with blue, purple, and 5N tones echoing their gemstones or case color. ...

For 2026, @panerai places the Luminor’s military-rooted design alongside one of the brand’s longest-running technical fascinations: extended power reserve.

This year’s collection also reconnects the brand to the reference 6152/1, one of the military-era Panerai watches that helped define the Luminor’s unmistakable design language through its cushion-shaped case, crown-protecting bridge, sandwich dial and highly legible display.

Leading the line-up is the Luminor 31 Giorni PAM01631, powered by the new hand-wound P.2031/S calibre. With four barrels in series, the movement delivers a full 31-day power reserve, making it Panerai’s most ambitious technical statement of the year. Housed in a 44mm Goldtech case and limited to 200 pieces, it pushes the brand’s long-power-reserve story into month-long territory.

The broader collection builds on that historical language in different ways. The PAM01731 and PAM01735 revisit vintage-inspired dial executions, while the left-handed Luminor Destro PAM01732 introduces a matte blue sandwich dial to one of Panerai’s most historically distinctive configurations.

The Luminor 8 Giorni PAM01733 feels like the clearest bridge back to the brand’s original functional logic, pairing a 44mm Brunito steel case with the hand-wound P.5000 calibre and its eight-day power reserve. Finally, the forged titanium PAM01629 adds another layer to the story, bringing Panerai’s long-running interest in advanced case materials into the Luminor collection for the first time.

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@blancpain1735 expands its Ladybird Colors collection in two distinct directions for 2026, moving from soft, chromatic elegance to full high-jewellery expression.

The Ladybird Colors Nude Moka introduces a softer, warmer shade to the collection, inspired by natural tones such as sand, terracotta and coffee. Warmer than beige and softer than black, it gives the watch a more understated, second-skin elegance, carried through the alligator leather strap and two-tone Roman numerals.

The Nude Moka is offered in two executions: one with interlaced diamond circles on the dial, and another with a snow-set centre featuring 152 additional diamonds. Both versions are housed in 34.9mm red or white gold cases.

At the other end of the spectrum is Diamond Bloom, which pushes the same Ladybird Colors language into full high-jewellery. Available in white gold or red gold, the watch is set with 919 diamonds totalling 4.794 carats across the case, bezel, dial and buckle, while the crown is finished with a rose-cut diamond.

Both creations are fitted with a nacre perlée dial, a rare form of mother-of-pearl known for its softly shifting green and pink reflections. Beneath the colour and gem-setting, both watches are powered by Blancpain’s automatic calibre 1163L, with moon phase, small seconds and a 100-hour power reserve — a reminder that, even at its most decorative, the Ladybird remains rooted in watchmaking. ...

@omega’s newest Bond watch is officially crossing from console to collection. Created for the upcoming 007 First Light video game, the Seamaster Diver 300M Chronograph 007 First Light marks the first-ever chronograph in James Bond’s Seamaster Diver 300M history.

The watch plays a central role in the game’s missions, where it appears as a true Bond gadget, fitted with a hacking device capable of disrupting electronic equipment, as well as a powerful laser strap.

For the production model, Omega translates the in-game design into a 44 mm stainless steel Seamaster Diver 300M Chronograph, featuring a polished black ceramic bezel ring with a white enamel diving scale, polished black ceramic pushers, and a black ceramic dial with the collection’s signature laser-engraved wave pattern. A PVD bronze gold finish highlights the subdial ring at 3 o’clock and central chronograph seconds hand, while the remaining hands and indexes are rhodium-plated and filled with white Super-LumiNova.

Inside is Omega’s self-winding Co-Axial Master Chronometer Calibre 9900, visible through the sapphire crystal caseback, which carries the 007 First Light logo in black metallisation. On the wrist, the watch debuts a new NATO strap inspired by the game, with six additional in-game strap designs also available separately. ...

@audemarspiguet brings a new creative voice to the Royal Oak Concept. The new Royal Oak Concept Flying Tourbillon is imagined in collaboration with Yoon Ahn and Verbal, the creative duo behind AMBUSH, bringing together the worlds of haute horlogerie, fashion, music and design.

Executed in titanium and limited to 150 pieces, the watch introduces a compact 38.5mm Royal Oak Concept case, paired with a shimmering black aventurine dial and a vivid red flying tourbillon positioned at 6 o’clock. For all its apparent boldness, the watch is quite restrained — it`s built around, and designed to highlight, the mechanical core of the timepiece, a new and visually restrained calibre.

That red flying tourbillon is more than a visual signature. Its aluminium cage is framed by an anodised red top plate, a first for Audemars Piguet, turning the regulating organ into both the technical and symbolic heart of the watch.

Inside, the hand-wound Calibre 2982 was developed specifically for this limited edition, building on the architecture of AP’s Calibre 2964. Its layered construction reveals the openworked barrel, part of the gear train and refined hand-finishing, while offering a clearer view of the movement’s energy in motion.

Since its debut in 2002, the Royal Oak Concept has served as Audemars Piguet’s platform for experimentation — a space for avant-garde materials, contemporary design and high complications. With Yoon and Verbal, that spirit continues through a more compact, culture-facing expression of the collection. ...

@seikowatchofficial and @citizenwatch have entered the billion-franc conversation.

According to WatchPro, for the year ended March 31, 2026, Seiko’s Watches Business reached CHF 1 billion, or ¥203.1 billion (¥196.8 billion excluding clocks) with its watchmaking division now 62% higher than in 2021–22. Citizen’s watches division also reached roughly CHF 1 billion, rising 10% to ¥197 billion, with watch sales up 50% over five years.

These milestone figures are significant because they point to something larger about the watch industry. While much of the conversation still centres on Swiss luxury and independents — especially in light of this year’s Morgan Stanley report on the health of the Swiss watch industry — Seiko and Citizen are a reminder that scale, accessibility and technical trust remain powerful forces in modern watchmaking.

For Seiko, the story is not just scale, but range. Its Watches Business covers Seiko, Grand Seiko and Credor, stretching from accessible collections to higher-end Japanese watchmaking. Beyond Grand Seiko, global lines such as Prospex, Presage and Seiko 5 Sports also play an important role in giving the group reach across markets, price points and audiences.

Citizen’s strength lies in its breadth. The group span brands like Citizen, Bulova, Alpina and Frederique Constant, while also producing components and Miyota movements, giving it reach across brands, markets and price points. Its clearest technical identity, however, remains Eco-Drive. As the technology turns 50 in 2026, it remains one of Citizen’s most widely understood ideas: a watch powered by light, built for everyday reliability.

For both companies, the CHF 1 billion milestone points to a broader truth about watchmaking today: growth can still come from accessibility, consistency and watches that speak to a wider audience. ...