The Best Watches of February 2025

2017’s hand-wound Timex Marlin reissue introduced a new generation to the joys of mechanical watches. Now, in celebration of its 100th birthday, The New Yorker is partnering with Timex on a special-edition Marlin of its own. Measuring 34mm (just like the 2017 reissue) and powered by a hand-wound movement, its steel case is set with a black and white dial inspired by the famed magazine’s “Goings On” section. A depiction of the NYC skyline with indices in The New Yorker’s signature typography is joined by a black pencil handset with a bagel in the center, a playful nod to the City’s culinary scene. Paired to a black leather strap and an extra fabric strap, it also features The New Yorker’s logo on its caseback.

• Diameter: 34mm
• Movement: Hand-wound
• Water Resistance: 30m

American microbrand Oak & Oscar teamed up with vintage watch specialist and dealer extraordinaire Eric Wind on this beautiful version of the former’s Atwood chronograph. Housed in a 39mm stainless steel case with pump pushers, a sapphire crystal and tapering flat-link bracelet with quick-adjust clasp, it features a handsome dial with plenty of special touches. The rehaut is fitted with a base-15 pulsations scale (for measuring pulse), while the triple-register chronograph readout features pops of blue and orange in reference to Georgetown, Wind’s alma mater. Powered by the hand-wound Sellita AMT5100M flyback movement, it’s limited to just 25 pieces. 

• Diameter: 39mm
• Movement: Sellita AMT5100M
• Water Resistance: 50m

What you’re looking at is the world’s first serially-produced, multi-colored ceramic watch. Dubbed “Magic Ceramic” by Hublot, this special material is the result of four years of R&D and a patent-pending process. (Why is it so complicated to produce? Because different colored ceramics require different firing temperatures during the baking and molding process.) Taking the form of a Big Bang Unico, its dark gray ceramic bezel features globular injections of blue, making for a distinct and unusual look that opens up modern horology to a decidedly more avant-garde future. Powered by the HUB1280 UNICO automatic flyback movement, the Big Bang Unico Magic Ceramic is a limited-edition of just 20 pieces. 

• Diameter: 42mm
• Movement: HUB1280 UNICO automatic
• Water Resistance: 100m

There’s nothing quite like a fancy version of a bona fide tool watch classic. To wit: The new Omega Seamaster Diver 300M Bronze Gold takes the dive watch from No Time to Die and does it up in an alloy of bronze, gold, palladium and silver, adding a matching mesh bracelet and an oxalic anodized aluminum bezel insert in burgundy. Measuring 42mm, it features a matte black aluminum dial with PVD 18K bronze gold hands and blackened indices filled with Super-LumiNova, while ticking away inside is Omega’s Co-Axial Master Chronometer Calibre 8806 automatic movement. It’s also available on a black rubber strap, if you so desire (though, in our opinion, the bronze gold mesh bracelet is half the fun).

• Diameter: 42mm
• Movement: Omega Co-Axial Master Chronometer Calibre 8806 automatic
• Water Resistance: 300m

Perhaps the most refreshing thing about British brand Christopher Ward’s Twelve 38 is how straightforward the company is about its unabashed Gérald Genta luxury sports watch influence. There are even six 12-sided screws on the caseback in a tasteful hat-tip to the Swiss maestro of ‘70s watch design. The latest development in the collection is the debut of four new open-series dials in the 38mm size: Nordic Blue, Glacier Blue, Arctic White and Midnight Sun, each of which is rendered in a cool pyramidal pattern that gives the watch — which measures just 9.95mm tall — some visual depth. Color-matched date wheels are a further premium touch, as is the multi-finish dodecagonal bezel.

• Diameter: 38mm
• Movement: Sellita SW200-1 automatic
• Water Resistance: 100m

Swiss watchmaker Girard-Perregaux and British car manufacturer Aston Martin have a longstanding partnership, the results of which are some spectacular watches. Their latest joint venture doesn’t disappoint, either. The new Girard-Perregaux Laureato Chronograph Aston Martin Edition takes GP’s luxury sports watch and gives it a Grade 5 titanium case and bracelet, while the dial is executed in an arresting shade of iridescent green achieved via a unique process: 15 layers of ultra-thin paint are applied, after which gray PVD-treated indices and subdials are added. The result is a racing watch with a distinct look that both hearkens back to Aston Martin’s heritage and embraces modern tech.

• Diameter: 42mm
• Movement: Girard-Perregaux GP03300 automatic 
• Water Resistance: 100m

Nodus, the American microbrand designing cool, colorful tool watches in Los Angeles, is debuting the new Sector II Dive GMT in three funky colorways. Available in Seafoam green, Tidal blue, and Horizon orange-yellow with either a matte black DLC or brushed steel bezel, the watch has been completely reengineered in its second generation. Measuring just 11.9mm tall while maintaining 100m of water resistance, its stainless steel case and end links have been tweaked for a streamlined, optimal fit. A 24-hour rehaut works in conjunction with a GMT hand and the automatic Seiko TMI NH34 movement to provide a second time zone, making the Sector II Dive GMT an ideal traveler’s companion.

• Diameter: 38mm
• Movement: Seiko TMI NH34 automatic
• Water Resistance: 100m

Few modern watchmakers capture the glamor of old-world refinement quite like Laurent Ferrier. In celebration of the brand’s 15th anniversary, L.F. is re-releasing its Classic Traveler Globe Night Blue, an elevated travel watch featuring a beautiful rendering of the globe and a unique time-telling system. Executed in opaque blue enamel with gold flakes, a map of the Earth is joined by dual apertures at 9 and 3 o’clock: “home” time at 9 o’clock and a date window at 3 o’clock. Subtle pushers on the white gold case’s left flank jump local time forward or backward in one-hour increments, while the whole shebang is controlled via the beautiful, automatic Laurent Ferrier cal. 230.02 with micro-rotor. 

• Diameter: 41mm
• Movement: Laurent Ferrier cal. 230.02 automatic
• Water Resistance: 30m

Swatch Group-owned Rado has always been an innovator in materials science. Having designed some of the industry’s early tungsten carbide watches, it continues to make cool (and affordable) ceramic timepieces today. The new DiaStar Original x Tej Chauhan, a collaboration with British industrial designer Tej Chauhan, uses a funky, tonneau-shaped DiaStar case from the 1970s as its base. Rendered in yellow-gold PVD-coated Ceramos, said case is paired to a matte-black dial with a funky silver and blue printed minute track and a day-date readout in a custom typeface. Paired to a light-gray, pillow-shaped rubber strap and powered by the Rado R764 automatic movement, it’s an excellent choice for the design set. 

• Diameter: 38mm
• Movement: Rado R764 automatic 
• Water Resistance: 100m

Bell & Ross once again taps a seemingly endless well of creativity to bring forth a new edition of its well-known BR-03 pilot’s watch. The Astro takes the familiar instrument panel-inspired case shape and reworks the dial to depict the Earth suspended in blue aventurine space. Around the Blue Planet circles a rendering of Mars (hours), the Moon (minutes) and a small grey satellite (seconds), all of which stand in for conventional watch hands. Powered by the automatic BR-CAL.327 movement and paired to a black rubber and fabric strap, the Astro is housed in a 41mm black ceramic case measuring 11.5mm tall and boasting 100m of water resistance. 

Diameter: 41mm

Movement: Bell & Ross BR-CAL.327 automatic

Water Resistance: 100m

LV’s high-end executions of its elegant Tambour watch are some of the best precious metal releases of the year. In addition to yellow gold and platinum editions with gem-set bezels, there’s also a new brown ceramic reference with rose gold accents within the bracelet links, dial indices and handset. The ceramic components — which take 90 hours of work to manufacture — actually sit atop a gold core that protects the movement. Said movement, the automatic LFT023.01 with 22K rose gold micro-rotor, was designed by La Fabrique du Temps Louis Vuitton and Le Cercle des Horlogers and constitutes LV’s first three-hand automatic in-house caliber.

• Diameter: 40mm
• Movement: LFT023.01 automatic
• Water Resistance: 50m

Everyone’s favorite British watchmaker’s reinvention under veteran industry fixture and CEO Davide Cerrato continues apace. The latest is the Terra Nova Bronze sub-collection. Including both limited-edition and catalog renderings of its Terra Nova field watches executed in cupro-aluminum bronze, the new watches feature silicon and aluminum components for enhanced strength and lighter weight. Our favorite is the Date, a streamlined model inspired by classic field watch designs that features a gradient green dial with rose gold-plated hands. (The cupro-aluminium bronze quick-release bracelet with butterfly clasp is a nice touch, too.)

• Diameter: 40.5mm
• Movement: Calibre 11 1/2’’’ BE-36AE automatic
• Water Resistance: 100m

The Ulysse Nardin Freak, launched in 2001, jettisons the traditional watch’s handset in favor of putting the movement components front and center — specifically, a linear gear train barrel mounted on a large mainspring barrel revolves around the dial center, indicating the time against a set of peripheral indices. A new collaboration with Swiss retailer Bucherer elevates this avant-garde concept even further, rendering the watch’s case in titanium and pairing it with a handcrafted green hour disc created with the guilloché technique. In keeping with Freak tradition, the movement’s balance wheel and oscillator are made of silicon, while the package is finished with a black rubber strap with green contrast stitching. 

• Diameter: 43mm
• Movement: Ulysse Nardin Cal. UN-230 automatic
• Water Resistance: 50m