New Watch Master

Year In Review: Video: The Watch I Wore Most In 2025, By Members Of The Hodinkee Family Every year, we return to the same question — and every year, it tells a different story. Per tradition, the Hodinkee team closes out the year by sharing the single watch that spent the most time on their wrist. Drawn from our editors, the wider Hodinkee team, and friends reporting from all parts of the world, these reflections aren't about what was newest or most celebrated. It's about the watch that kept showing up — the one reached for instinctively, until it became woven into the rhythm of our everyday lives. Thank you again to all you readers out there, those who watch our content, and the gracious participants who took part in our video assignment. We look forward to an epic 2026. 'Till then, press play, settle in, and look back with us, one watch at a time.

Year In Review: The #2 Story Of '25: Inside Mike Wood’s ‘For Exhibition Only’: A Private Rolex Collection On Limited Display tk

Year In Review: The #4 Story Of '25: Inside Rolliefest 2025 — The 'Met Gala' of Watches

Year In Review: The #6 Story Of '25: Reference Points - The Cartier Tank Louis

Year In Review: The #8 Story Of '25: In-Depth With The Blancpain Grande Double Sonnerie

Year In Review: The #11 Story Of '25: Hands-On With The Patek Philippe Cubitus In 40mm

Year in Review: the “Sleeper” Watches of 2025 How does one define a “sleeper” watch? We put together a guide a few years ago and basically came to the conclusion that a sleeper watch is one that is great but not obvious about it. A better framing might be that these are “if you know, you know” watches. They all have some attribute that makes them incredibly special but it’s not always readily apparent or widely understood.  Honestly, I love a sleeper and always have. I think it’s a natural focus for a collector, and as you see more and more watches, it paradoxically becomes more difficult to identify the sleepers, because nothing really “sleeps” when you’re highly engaged in a hobby like this.  Zenith G.F.J.   The Zenith G.F.J. is a sleeper because it’s so specific and so hard to see, it’s just not really out there all that much in the broader watch media landscape. But man, it’s great. It’s a tribute of sorts to Zenith’s history as true pioneers in chronometry,...

Year In Review: The #12 Story Of '25: Splashdown: The Little-Known Story Of Navy Frogmen, The Space Program, And Tudor

Year In Review: The #15 Story Of '25: Hands-On With The Rolex Daytona Ref. 126508 "John Mayer 2.0"

Year in Review: the Best Travel Watches of 2025 Travel watches have been on the absolute rise in recent years. Where dive watches were once the default option for a first sports watch, GMTs, dual times, and world timers have been making a credible play for wrist time with enthusiasts of all strata. There are practical reasons for this — movements like the Miyota 9075 and Seiko NH34 have made including a GMT complication in a watch more affordable than ever — but I think practical reasons only scratch the surface of this precipitous rise. To tell the whole story, you have to look for the romantic. There’s an inherent appeal in travel watches. They’re optimistic and remind us to stay interested in the world even when we’re stuck at home, or work, or in the myopia of day-to-day life, when the little things around us stop us from looking further. I think this appeal was only reinforced by a mandatory two-year stay inside, at home, and I don’t think it’s by chance that our collective r...

Year in Review: the Best “Money No Object” Watches of 2025 I’m long on record saying the mark of a genuine enthusiast is being able to get just as excited about a $100 Timex or G-Shock as about a $100,000 Rolex or Patek. I still think there’s something to that. Still, I also recognize that summing it up so patly, though convenient, ignores a huge amount of the nuance that undeniably exists in the watch space. It also ignores some of the fundamental impacts of price, including, crucially, attainability. After all, there are very few enthusiast pursuits (or, really, pursuits of any kind) where price and pursuit can be wholly siloed, and watches are not some rare example where we can afford to be price agnostic — at least, not most of us. Still, once in a while, it can be fun to just say screw it and enjoy watches for what they can be at their most extreme. Which brings us to the topic of today’s 2025 round-up, “F**k You Money” watches. The concept of a “F**k You Money” watch can be...

Year In Review: The #16 Story Of '25: The Business of Watches Podcast With Sylvain Berneron On His Company’s Work Philosophy, Business Structure, And Future Watches

Year in Review: the Best New Brands of 2025 It’s hard to launch a watch brand. And yet, every year, new brands appear. It’s honestly tough to keep up sometimes, and when looking back at 2025, there seemed to be a flurry of new brands competing for our attention at all levels. It’s a truly crowded market, and in spite of the conventional wisdom that we’re moving towards consolidation, the reality on the ground for us is that there’s a surplus of good watches from new players out there to consider. More, in fact, than we can even cover. This is a selection of brands that broke through the noise in one way or another and impressed us in 2025, a difficult task when your inbox is overflowing with press releases and notifications of new stuff to check out. I’m quite certain I missed plenty of good stuff that will only resurface in 2026 when these brands will just be “new to me” and not simply “new,” but that’s an inescapable aspect of covering this industry – there’s simply never an end...

Year In Review: The #18 Story Of '25: Watch Spotting - The Watches & Fashion Of Met Gala 2025

Year In Review: The #20 Story Of '25: There Is Only Time