A Recap Of 2024: Rounding Up The Year’s Hottest Watch Releases

The watch world is a crazy place, always buzzing with new releases, exciting events, leadership changes, thrilling collabs and hot takes. So, if you are a fan of watches, it's tough to keep up, right? Here, even the most dedicated can struggle to maintain pace. Thankfully for you, I’m here to navigate this complex landscape, to sift through the noise and bring you the most exciting timepieces and news about timepieces.

Having had the opportunity to examine and analyze literally hundreds of timepieces throughout the year, we now turn our attention to a retrospective of the most significant horological releases of the year. Join me on a journey through the year's most exciting moments in horology, where I'll be your personal concierge to the hottest and craziest releases of 2024.

Notable Releases From The Year 2024

Although we got some really exciting new watch releases at the LVMH Watch Week, Watches and Wonders 2024 and the Geneva Watch Days, it sort of blacked out outside the events in regards to new releases. The notable trend in terms of new launches was the introduction of many ‘minis.’ There was the AP Royal Oak Mini, Cartier Tank LC Mini, Tank Américaine Mini, Longines Mini, Bulgari Bulgari Mini and many more. To be honest, Cartier’s influence throughout the year has been so dominant and widespread on many timepiece releases, that although aren’t exact derivatives, but somewhat in the similar styling vein to Cartier. Do consider the new Berneron Mirage 34. What a piece!

The major heft of releases for the year happened at Watches and Wonders where we got the impressive IWC Portugieser Eternal Calendar with a 45-million-year moon-phase. It recently won the “Aiguille d’Or” Grand Prix award for 2024. We also got the Jaeger-LeCoultre Duometre Chronograph Moon and the Duometre Heliotourbillon Perpetual. Bulgari finally nailed the last piece of the ultra-thin puzzle with the Bulgari Octo Finissimo Ultra COSC, the thinnest mechanical watch at 1.7 millimeters thick. Although a few months down the line, Russian maestro Konstantin Chaykin presented his prototype for the new world’s thinnest mechanical watch, the ThinKing at Geneva Watch Days. At just 1.65 millimetres thick (or thin), the ThinKing betters the Octo Finissimo Ultra COSC by 0.05mm, a not so significant but also very significant dimension in all possible regards, making Konstantin Chaykin the newly established leader of the horological realm’s ultra-thin arms race.

Watches and Wonders also gave us the new Parmigiani Toric Petite Seconde and the Grand Seiko “Birch Bark” Hand-Wound, the brand’s first hi-beat fully mechanical hand-wound timepiece in 50 years. Tudor impressed with, what everyone thought was going to be a Rolex feature, the Coke bezel GMT with the launch of the new Black Bay 58 GMT. We also got the 18-karat yellow gold Black Bay 58, with an olive-green dial.

The big Patek Philippe novelty from the event was their World Time 5330G with a corresponding date display. They also gave their in-line perpetual calendar, the Ref. 5236P, a salmon-dial makeover. Another buzzing piece from the Maison was their new Golden Ellipse with the chain bracelet. Rolex impressed with their new black-and-gray bezel GMT-Master II, making us wait still for that coke-bezel GMT. They also introduced their gold-brick, the Deepsea in yellow-gold with a blue dial. The Perpetual 1908 in Platinum was also a buzzing novelty at the fair although many predicted a revival of complications in the Rolex true dress watch segment.

Cartier too impressed with their new Privé, the Cartier Tortue and the Tortue Monopusher. We also got the Santos de Cartier Dual Time and the Santos-Dumont Rewind, a timepiece with inverted rotation and counterclockwise running of time. They also introduced a number of impressive jewelry watches. Panerai was buzzing with the launch of the Submersible QuarantaQuattro Luna Rossa in Ti-Ceramitech and titanium. Vacheron Constantin gave us a whole new Overseas collection with green dials but the most impressive release from the Manufacture was the Berkley Grand Complication with 63 complications, the most complicated watch ever packing in the first-ever Chinese perpetual calendar.

Other notable mentions from the fair include the Laurent Ferrier Classic Moon Annual Calendar, the Piaget Altiplano Ultimate Concept Tourbillon, the Bovet Récital 28 Prowess 1 World Time with daylight saving time and the H. Moser & Cie. Streamliner Tourbillon Skeleton. The rebranded Bremont went for a land, sea and air theme and introduced the Terra Nova as the showcase piece. Ulysse Nardin updated their Freak line with the launch of the Freak S Nomad.

Outside of the fair in Geneva, we had somewhat of a reticent year, but not short of some thrilling releases. The Tudor Black Bay Chrono “Pink” was introduced just days before the fair in a partnership with David Beckham's football club Inter Miami. Very recently, Tudor gave us the latest military-derived iteration of the Pelagos, the Pelagos FXD GMT.

2024 has been a solid year for Omega. They enriched their iconic collections - Speedmaster, Seamaster, De Ville, and Constellation - with impressive new models. As the Official Timekeeper of the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics, they naturally unveiled a series of commemorative timepieces, the most impressive being the Speedmaster Chronoscope Paris 2024. They introduced the Speedmaster Moonwatch with a lacquered white dial and the recent Speedmaster Pilot among other Speedy models along with novel iterations of the Seamaster line-up, notable being the Omega Seamaster Diver 300M Black No-Date.

The Serica Parade, Girard-Perregaux Casquette 2.0 Titanium and Gold, H. Moser & Cie. x Studio Underd0g Project Passion, Jaeger-LeCoultre Polaris Geographic, Audemars Piguet [RE]MASTER02, the Piaget Polo 79, the utterly impressive A. Lange & Söhne's Datograph Handwerkskunst, MB&F’s M.A.D.Editions M.A.D.1S and the Girard-Perregaux Casquette 2.0 Titanium and Gold round up the list of the year’s most exciting newly launched watches.

Last and definitely not the least, we need to address the first new collection from Patek Philippe in 25 years, the Cubitus. The collection consisting of three models was introduced in Munich towards the end of the year to mixed reactions from the watch public.

A Year To Remember

We hope that you have enjoyed this round-up of the year’s hottest releases and it has got you pumped up in anticipation for what’s to come next year. As 2024 draws to a close, we bid farewell to a year that has witnessed a remarkable renaissance in horology. This year has truly been a feast for watch enthusiasts. As we eagerly anticipate what the future holds, one thing is certain: the world of horology will continue to captivate and inspire.

You can read about the exciting collabs, anniversaries, leadership changes and market takeaways for 2024 in our follow-up instalment of the horological roundup of 2024.