From Hermès to Richard Mille: The Best Watchmaking Novelties of 2026
Eight standout novelties from this year’s drops, spanning storied Swiss houses, fashion maisons and the classics reborn, all landing in boutiques across Singapore.
Eight standout novelties from this year’s drops, spanning storied Swiss houses, fashion maisons and the classics reborn, all landing in boutiques across Singapore
Here is a number worth sitting with: across the roughly 60 to 65 maisons exhibiting at Watches & Wonders Geneva alone, somewhere between 500 and 800 new references get unveiled in a single week every April. Add in the brands that skip the fair entirely (Rolex, Richard Mille, Chanel), the ones that drop novelties year-round, and the sheer breadth of categories on offer, from steel sports watches to eight-figure minute repeaters, and you see the problem. Nobody, not even the most caffeinated watch editor, can meaningfully cover a year in horology in one sitting.
So consider this the first of many chapters.
We are picking out the pieces that made us stop scrolling, the ones with a genuine story behind the reference number, and making sure every single one is something you can actually walk into a boutique here in Singapore and see for yourself, whether that’s on Orchard Road, at Marina Bay Sands, or at ION.
Hermès Arceau Samarcande, for the maison that keeps outdoing itself
Hermès has spent the last few years quietly proving it belongs in conversations usually reserved for the grand old houses of Geneva, and the Arceau Samarcande is the argument closed. The dial, carved from Saint-Louis crystal (the French crystal house in which Hermès holds a stake), is openworked into the unmistakable silhouette of a horse’s head, revealing the new Calibre H1927, a skeletonised automatic movement built specifically for Hermès over five years. It is also, more improbably, a minute repeater: press the slide and it chimes the hours, quarters and minutes on demand, one of watchmaking’s most technically punishing complications. Housed in the 38mm Arceau case designed by Henri d’Origny in 1978, with its signature asymmetric stirrup lugs, it comes in white or rose gold, with a six-piece limited edition featuring hand-engraving and miniature painting for those chasing the rarest version of an already rare thing. If you needed proof Hermès takes watchmaking as seriously as it takes leather, this is it.
Chanel J12 Blue, the shade that took five years to get right
For a brand synonymous with black and white, launching a third signature colour is not a decision Chanel takes lightly. The J12 Blue, now entering the permanent collection in 38mm and 33mm cases after a limited run in 2025, is the product of five years of research into a ceramic that is, in the words of Watch Creation Studio director Arnaud Chastaingt, not quite black and not quite blue. The result is a matte ceramic so deep it reads almost midnight, running through the case, bracelet and dial alike, powered by Chanel’s in-house Calibre 12.1 or 12.2. The J12 has always had a devoted following in Asia, Singapore included, and this is the version that finally gives loyalists a third house colour to build around, alongside the sportier J12 42mm Superleggera and the horological flex of the Monsieur Lion Tourbillon Black Edition, a 55-piece run built around a laser-engraved titanium lion’s head inside a flying tourbillon cage.
Longines HydroConquest, the diver that finally grew up
Every generation needs a workhorse, and for Longines that has long been the HydroConquest. The 2026 redesign is the most comprehensive since the model’s 2007 debut: two case sizes (39mm and 42mm), both a slimmer 11.7mm thick, a reworked ceramic bezel now offered in five colours including a new frosted blue and verdant green, and a cleaner dial that swaps the old oversized Arabic numerals for geometric indexes. Inside sits the updated Calibre L888.5 with a silicon balance spring and a 72-hour power reserve, and for the first time the collection gets a Milanese mesh bracelet option. Longines fronted the relaunch with Henry Cavill, shot on the shores of Tenerife, which does the watch no harm at all. Prices in Singapore start from roughly SGD 2,800 for the boutique-exclusive reference, the most accessible entry point on this list, and proof that a serious redesign need not mean a serious price hike.
Harry Winston Ocean Tourbillon GMT Worldtimer, for the maximalist
If subtlety is not the assignment, Harry Winston’s latest Ocean Tourbillon GMT Worldtimer will do very nicely. This is a watch that combines two of watchmaking’s most prized complications, a tourbillon and a GMT function, inside a 46mm white gold case invisibly set with 66 baguette-cut diamonds and, tilt it slightly, 78 baguette-cut blue sapphires hidden beneath in the lower bezel and case sides. The dial alone carries 185 baguette diamonds and 35 more sapphires, with a one-minute tourbillon visible at 6 o’clock and a home-time counter that tracks 24 cities via pusher. It runs on the in-house HW1005 calibre with a genuinely impressive 110-hour power reserve. Limited to five pieces, it is precisely the kind of watch that reminds you Harry Winston built its name on gemstones long before it built movements, and that the two disciplines, done properly, are extraordinarily hard to combine.
Montblanc Iced Sea, the one with a forest inside it
Montblanc’s 2026 novelties lean hard into materials storytelling, and the standout is a version of the Iced Sea whose dial is inlaid with fragments of subfossil wood, tree remnants pushed into glacial moraine over millennia, coated in resin and finished to mimic striated ice. Because the wood shavings scatter randomly during production, no two dials are identical, which is a genuinely rare claim in an industry that prizes consistency above almost everything else. It sits in a 41mm steel case with a brown ceramic bezel and runs on the automatic Calibre MB 24.17. For anyone whose collection currently skews towards Rolex and Omega divers, this is the curveball worth adding.
Chopard Mille Miglia Classic Chronograph Raticosa, for the motorsport obsessive
Chopard’s nearly four-decade partnership with Italy’s Mille Miglia road race is the backbone of its Classic Racing collection, and this year’s Raticosa edition pays tribute to the race’s most feared mountain pass, a stretch Enzo Ferrari himself reckoned decided the entire event. The 40.5mm case is made from Chopard’s exclusive Lucent Steel, a highly polished, hypoallergenic alloy with an 80 per cent recycled content, paired with a glassbox sapphire crystal for a vintage silhouette. The titanium caseback is engraved like a postcard of a car powering across the pass, and the chronometer-certified movement runs on a 54-hour power reserve. Co-President Karl-Friedrich Scheufele has driven the actual race every year since 1989, so this is not a marketing exercise dressed up as heritage. It is heritage.
Vacheron Constantin Overseas Cardinal Points, for the frequent flyer
Vacheron Constantin’s Overseas dual-time line gets four new colourways this year, each tied to a compass point: white for the frozen north, brown for the open plains of the south, green for western forest, and blue for the eastern seas. The 41mm titanium case and integrated bracelet keep things light on the wrist, powered by the in-house Calibre 5110 DT/3 with home and local time, day/night indication and date. It builds on the maison’s ongoing collaboration with explorer and photographer Cory Richards, whose original prototype inspired the design back in 2019. It is a watch built explicitly for people who cross time zones for a living, or for fun, which makes it a natural fit for a city as connected as Singapore.
Richard Mille RM 41-01 Tourbillon Soccer, for whom money is genuinely no object
And then there is the watch built for a World Cup year. Richard Mille spent five years, in collaboration with Audemars Piguet Le Locle, developing a patented tourbillon flyback chronograph calibre with two entirely new complications: a match-phase indicator that advances through first half, second half and both periods of extra time, and a mechanical goal counter that racks up to nine goals per side before resetting. Limited to 30 pieces each in Red Carmin Basalt TPT and Dark Blue Quartz TPT, priced at CHF 1.45 million before tax, this is not a watch you simply walk in and buy off a shelf, even at Richard Mille’s Singapore boutique. It is a watch you get on allocation, which is precisely the point. For the collector who already has everything else on this list, the RM 41-01 is the one that actually moves the needle.
That’s chapter one. Given the scale of what the industry ships every year, from the storied Geneva houses to the fashion maisons quietly building serious watchmaking credentials of their own, there is plenty more where this came from.
