Dubai Watch Week is perhaps the most engaging and collector focused watch event on the calendar that I’ve attended this year. Watches and Wonders may bring the volume of releases but the conversation at Dubai Watch Week 2025 is unmatched. This year featured talks with Rolex CEO Jean-Frederic Dufour, roundtables with Ilaria Resta, Georges Kern, Julien Tornare and Karl-Friedrich Scheufele, plus collector meetups and the kind of informal discussions with industry insiders that only DWW seems to create. Of course the other focus was the watches themselves and I have picked a few personal highlights that I managed to handle in the metal.
Chopard L.U.C Grand Strike
Starting with a watch most of us will only ever dream of handling, let alone owning. The L.U.C Grand Strike is Chopard’s most complicated creation ever, built from 686 components and combining not one chiming watch function but three, with a minute repeater, petite sonnerie and grande sonnerie all rolled into one, plus a selectable silent mode and a tourbillon.
It carries both COSC certification and the Geneva Seal and it uses Chopard’s patented sapphire monobloc gong and crystal system, an idea inspired by the sound of champagne flutes clinking at dinner. No other brand does chiming quite like this. Despite the complexity it remains surprisingly wearable in ethical white gold at 43mm by 14.08mm. It’s priced around CHF 780,000 before taxes, which feels almost reasonable once you hear it.
Doxa SUB 300β Dubai Watch Week 2025
I tried to leave out Seddiqi exclusives, but the ceramic cased, cherry dialled SUB 300β was impossible to ignore. Limited to only eleven pieces and sold exclusively through Ahmed Seddiqi, it pairs a 42.5mm by 11.95mm matte black ceramic case with a sunburst red dial and matching bezel markings, a combination you almost never see in the dive watch world (perhaps due to fears of not being as readable as the normal black and white).
It looks especially utilitarian on the grey NATO, although it also comes with a black FKM rubber strap and PVD folding clasp. Beneath the surface is a COSC certified automatic movement with a 38-hour power reserve and 300m water resistance, so it is every bit the tool watch despite its rarity. Priced at AED 18,750 (around £3,905), it was still available in tiny numbers when I checked in Dubai, which felt like a minor miracle.
Laurent Ferrier Classic Origin Beige
Laurent Ferrier rarely misses and the new Classic Origin Beige proves the point. On paper it is a simple update, pairing the familiar 40mm Classic Origin case now in 5N red gold with a soft beige, opaline dial. However, the balance is spot on and the red highlights on the 24-hour track and small seconds give it a welcome lift.
The caseback is where the real charm sits. The manual wind calibre LF116.01 beats at an elegant 3 Hz, offers an 80-hour power reserve and is finished in a deliberately restrained style with chamfered plates that suit the watch’s minimalist character. Price is around £41,000.
Tudor Ranger 36mm Dune White
There is something effortlessly classy about an off-white dial, and the new Dune White Ranger proves it. The colour looks creamy in photos but in the harsh Dubai sun it appears far paler, giving the watch a crisper, more modern feel. The new 36mm case wears far better than expected and does not feel small even when paired with the 11mm height.
It keeps the same 100m water resistance as its big brother however the movement is switched to the MT5400 manufacture calibre, which is the same with its COSC rating and 70-hour power reserve, just at a smaller size. The dial is the highlight, with crisp black numerals taken from the 1960s Ranger and a tone inspired by desert sand to mark Tudor’s role as timing partner of the Dakar Rally. The 36 comes in at £2,650 on fabric or £2,930 on steel.
De Bethune DB25 Perpetual Sky
The move toward cleaner, less cluttered perpetual calendars rolls on, and De Bethune have entered the ring with the new DB25 Perpetual Sky. Now in a very wearable 40mm grade 5 titanium case at 11.3 millimetres thick, this slim, manual-wind piece sits closer to a sports watch on the wrist than its classical looks suggest.
The blued titanium dial is classic De Bethune theatre, with laser micro engraved Milky Way and 24 carat gold leaf inlays, plus a spherical moon phase in palladium and blued steel that is accurate to a single day in 122 years. Inside is the DB2005V3 calibre with a five-day power reserve, and the watch will be produced in very small numbers, with 2025 output counted in single digits. Price is around CHF 125,000 (approx. £118,300) before taxes.
Tag Heuer Monaco Split Seconds Chronograph Air 1
I should not like the new Monaco Split Seconds Chronograph Air 1. It is bold, brash and aggressively angular, yet there is something admirable about the team’s push for real technical progress. After debuting a new version of their carbon hairspring at Watches and Wonders, TAG Heuer now turns to Selective Laser Melting, a form of additive manufacturing that builds the titanium case by fusing layers of metallic powder with a high-powered laser (think metallic equivalent to 3D printing).
It allows for the multi-faceted, hypercar air intake style lattice that defines the Air 1 while keeping the 39mm case down to 85g on the wrist. Add the automatic TH81 00 split seconds chronograph movement developed with Vaucher, running at 5 Hz with a 65-hour power reserve, a sapphire sandwich construction and ultra-light wearability and you end up with a boundary pushing piece of haute horology. Once I put it on my wrist, I could not help but fall for it. Comfortable, surprisingly legible in person and unapologetically technical, it is a statement watch – which at CHF 150,000 and limited to 30 pieces, it absolutely should be.
