The Best Watches of March 2025

There are few watches more suited to elegant everyday wear than the Omega Seamaster Aqua Terra. With its ample water resistance, good looks and Co-Axial Master Chronometer movement, the Aqua Terra — in any guise — is one of those perennial candidates for the mythical “one-watch collection.” A new lacquered turquoise iteration with a black gradient effect, grey PVD faceted hands and hour markers, and an outer minute track in bright turquoise is unusual enough to be striking but subtle enough to work as an elegant timepiece in a more formal setting. Powered by the brand’s Calibre 8900 movement and paired to a matching brushed and polished steel bracelet, it’s a solid use of $6,600.

• Diameter: 41mm
• Movement: Omega Co-Axial Master Chronometer Calibre 8900 automatic
• Water Resistance: 150m

Girard-Perregaux’s longstanding partnership with Aston Martin manifests in a new limited edition of just 88 pieces, the Laureato Absolute Aston Martin F1 Edition. Housed in a 44mm Grade 5 titanium case with an octagonal bezel, it features a dial in Aston Martin Racing Green with skeletonized, lime green-tipped hands that mirror the Aston Martin F1 team’s livery, plus a framed date window at 6 o’clock with a black background. Powered by the brand’s in-house GP03300 movement and paired to a fabric-textured FKM rubber strap — also in Aston Martin Racing Green — it’s water resistant to 300m, making it an excellent choice for driving, swimming or pretty much anything else.

• Diameter: 44mm
• Movement: Girard-Perregaux Calibre GP03300 automatic
• Water Resistance: 300m

Based on vintage designs from the late 1960s, the Hamilton Intra-Matic Auto Chrono is one of the best — and best-looking — automatic chronographs you can buy in the $2,000-$3,000 range. Available in panda, reverse panda and other colorways, it’s now launching in three cool black PVD designs with bright accents: a black case and dial with white indices and hands; a black case and dial with a yellow tachymeter scale and seconds hand; and a black case and dial with an orange tachymeter scale and seconds hand. Powered by the Hamilton H-31 automatic movement, each comes paired to a black rallye-style perforated leather strap with black, yellow or orange underlying.

• Diameter: 40mm
• Movement: Hamilton Caliber H-31 automatic (ETA/Valjoux 7753 base)
• Water Resistance: 100m

It’s tough to argue with a cool limited-edition version of one of the world’s most famous chronographs: The Breitling Navitimer B01 Chronograph 43 North American Limited Edition, limited to 300 pieces, mixes a 43mm stainless steel case with an 18K red gold bezel, an anthracite dial with black subdials, the model family’s famous slide-rule bezel, and gold baton indices and sword hands. Functioning as its power plant is the Breitling Caliber 01 automatic manufacture movement with 70 hours of power reserve, while its caseback is engraved “ONE OF 300” and “LIMITED EDITION.” Paired to a simple black alligator leather strap, this handsome take on the Navitimer is only available in American and Canadian Breitling boutiques.

• Diameter: 43mm
• Movement: Breitling Caliber 01 automatic 
• Water Resistance: 30m

Glasgow-based Paulin makes artfully-designed watches at approachable prices, making them (as well as sister brand anOrdain, famed for its enamel-dial pieces) a favorite of the microbrand world. The company’s Modul, which uses a modular case design that can fit multiple movement types, has proven a popular canvas upon which to iterate different avant-garde designs. The latest, a collaboration with artist Crystal Zapata, comes in two variants: Day (cloudy blue and off-white) and Night (deep navy and white) each use a 35mm Modul case with a dial featuring gloss lacquer over sunburst engraving and a star-studded minute track, all of which contributes to a celestial theme. Powered by the ETA F06 quartz movement and paired to a steel mesh bracelet, the Zapata Day and Zapata Night Moduls are the most fun you can have for roughly $500.

• Diameter: 35mm
• Movement: ETA F06 quartz
• Water Resistance: 50m

A fresh model from everyone’s favorite Bauhaus-inspired brand, the NOMOS Minimatik is a simple, hand-wound dress watch in a 39mm case powered by the brand’s DUW 4601 movement. Available in three versions, each features a classically shaped round case with a slime profile, a curved sapphire crystal, and long, gently curving lugs. The dial, available in two silver-plated iterations or a handsome deep-blue version, featured a gold-framed date window at 3 o’clock, an outer open minute track, Arabic and dot indices, a large sub-seconds display, and a handset in either rhodium or gold plating. (The dial, which is itself gently curving, seems to disappear into the case flanks in a neat trick of the eye.) The fine finishing of the Calibre DUW 4601, meanwhile, can be admired via a transparent caseback.

• Diameter: 39mm
• Movement: NOMOS DUW 4601 hand-wound
• Water Resistance: 50m

The latest entry in Blancpain’s Fifty Fathoms Tech BOC family — a series of hardwearing watches with features for serious divers — the new BOC IV is a 45mm Grade 23 titanium beast with an integrated rubber strap, a helium escape valve, a unidirectional bezel with a black ceramic timing insert, and a whopping 300m of water resistance. A black dial with luminescent indices and sword hands provides plenty of underwater visibility, while the automatic Caliber 1315A boasts a silicon balance spring, five-day power reserve and an 18K gold oscillating weight. Bonus: $1,000 of each of the 1,000 pieces made will be allocated to the Blancpain x Sulubaaï Marine Research Center in the Philippines.

• Diameter: 45mm
• Movement: Blancpain Caliber 1315A automatic
• Water Resistance: 300m

Rado’s Captain Cook is an unsung hero of the dive watch department — introduced in 1962, it’s since expanded into a full-fledged collection featuring not just time-only dive watches, but also chronographs, skeletonized watches and more. The new Captain Cook Over-Pole takes a beloved, vintage-inspired worldtimer that the brand relaunched in 2022 and dresses it up in gold-toned PVD, throwing in a matching beads-of-rice bracelet for good measure. Measuring 39mm in diameter and just 10.9mm tall, it features a bi-directional city bezel that, when used in conjunction with a 24-hour scale on the watch’s handsome silvered dial, can be used to tell the time all around the world. Powered by the hand-wound Calibre R862 movement, it also comes with an additional brown leather strap. 

• Diameter: 39mm
• Movement: Rado Calibre R862 hand-wound
• Water Resistance: 100m

British brand Christopher Ward’s wares provide some of the best value in the contemporary watch world. Take the brand’s new C60 Sapphire Edge, for example: It uses a piece of sapphire measuring just 0.6mm thick for the dial, beneath which the Sellita SW300 automatic movement can be seen doing its thing. The watch’s dive bezel insert is likewise machined from sapphire with multi-layer Super-LumiNova printing, while the case is thinner than previous models at just 10.7mm tall. And speaking of lume — its liberal application extends even to the watch’s Aquaflex dive strap, whose FKM rubber surface glows in concert with the watch’s dial. With its blue theme and 300m of water resistance, the C60 Sapphire Edge is ready to be your next vacation watch.

• Diameter: 42mm
• Movement: Sellita SW300 automatic
• Water Resistance: 300m

Louis Vuitton’s haute horological journey continues apace with the new LVKV-02 GMR 6, a collaboration with star watchmaker Kari Voutilainen. Based upon LV’s Escale (which it relaunched in 2024), the LVKV-02 GMR 6 features a 40.5mm tantalum case with a bezel, back lugs, crown and strap buckle rendered in titanium. This being a travel watch inspired by the brand’s trunk-making heritage, even the lugs are reminiscent of globe-hopping, taking the shape of LV trunk hardware. The dial is a work of art: Featuring a hand-guilloché center, its outer diamond-polished hour circle is hand-painted in 28 colors to represent stained-glass windows, while a magnificent sun and moon indicator above 6 o’clock works in concert with a 24-hour GMT indicator. Finally, a power-reserve display is visible at 12 o’clock.

• Diameter: 40.5mm
• Movement: Kari Voutilainen Calibre GMR 6 hand-wound
• Water Resistance: 3m