Fratello Favorites: The Best Watches Of 2025 — Lex’s Picks From Audemars Piguet, Laventure, Breguet, Piaget, And More

End-of-the-year lists — many either love ‘em or hate ‘em. I’m not going to take a side; instead, I will choose my five favorite watches that debuted in 2025 in this second installment of our current Fratello Favorites series. Thomas kicked it off with his five favorites from the hundreds of watches released this year. Now it’s time for The Best Watches Of 2025, bearing the Lex Stolk sign of approval. I’ll also include an honorable mention.

The following six watches were selected strictly on subjective, personal, and often irrational grounds. Please keep that in mind when reviewing my picks for the best watches of 2025, listed in no particular order.

The best watches of 2025 — Pick #1: Piaget Andy Warhol “Collage” Limited Edition

Some watches are designed to be funky for the sake of being funky. And although most definitely funky, I don’t get that trying-too-hard-to-be-funky feeling when I look at the Andy Warhol “Collage” Limited Edition ref. G0A50243.

Piaget created a watch that feels like a natural step in the model’s heritage. The groovy, stepped 45mm case rendered in 18K yellow gold — a nod to Warhol’s 1973 watch and a precious alloy otherwise absent from the current Andy Warhol Watch collection — is like a sculpture. It also acts as the perfect frame for the dial, a marquetry of colorful ornamental gemstones in an abstract composition inspired by one of Warhol’s famed 1986 Polaroid collage self-portraits. There are 50 Andy Warhol “Collage” Limited Edition watches around, and each has a retail price of €78,000.

Pick #2: Breguet Souscription 2025

The winner of this year’s Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève also made it to my list of the best watches of 2025. The Breguet Classique Souscription 2025 won the “Aiguille d’Or” Grand Prix 2025. Although not a highly complicated creation — the lack of mechanical complexity proved to be a topic of discussion during and after the award ceremony — the watch is an interesting piece with a lovely movement.

It’s no coincidence that Breguet chose this watch to mark the start of its 250th anniversary year. The one-hand watch draws inspiration from Abraham-Louis Breguet’s original souscription (“subscription”) pocket watches, which helped him rebuild his destroyed workshop after returning from exile. The Souscription 2025 (€53,800) also marks the start of a new chapter of the brand under the leadership of its new CEO, Gregory Kissling. In a way, this watch serves the same purpose as the original souscription pocket watches; it’s an effort to revitalize the sleeping giant that is Breguet. It does so with the elegance, restraint, and refined craftsmanship that have long defined the brand.

The best watches of 2025 — #3: Czapek Time Jumper in yellow gold

There’s another celebratory watch on my list. It’s a watch celebrating the 10th anniversary of Czapek’s revival. The newly young brand surprised us with the Time Jumper. The watch comes in two limited-edition versions — steel and yellow gold. The creation reimagines a 19th-century pocket watch made by François Czapek, translating its spirit into a 40.5mm wristwatch with a half-hunter cover. The design offers a contemporary spin on traditional guilloché while partially veiling the new open-worked caliber 10.01 beneath it.

The 30-piece LE in yellow gold (CHF 64,000 ex. taxes) is my favorite. In this precious material, it hovers between the past and the future. And if the closed-cover view leaves you feeling a bit woozy or mesmerized, this is why: the three-dimensional guilloché forms an optical illusion reminiscent of a black hole. The central magnifying glass acts like an event horizon, drawing the eye inward and offering a glimpse of the open-worked complication beneath. The Time Jumper debuts a patent-pending jump-hour mechanism that displays 24 hours across two discs, paired with trailing minutes on a peripheral ring. Czapek’s caliber 10.01 marks another meaningful step in the brand’s evolution, as it is designed, conceived, assembled, and 75% machined in-house. Interestingly, the base of the movement is designed in a way that it can feature other complications in the future.

Pick #4: Code 11.59 by Audemars Piguet Selfwinding in steel with a gray dial

I could have chosen the groundbreaking Royal Oak Chronograph with its soft-touch pushers or the Perpetual Calendar with its clever, gearbox-like crown. But instead, I opted for a more down-to-earth watch. The 41mm gray-dial Code 11.59 ref. 15210ST.OO.A009KB.01 is on my list because the movement and case were always great, but the dial never was to my liking until this watch came out. Luckily, the dial with four lonesome Arabic numerals, off-balance 4:30 date window, and alarmingly skinny hands is no more. Audemars Piguet created a new dial with applied baton indexes, a date at 3 o’clock, and beefed-up but classy skeletonized hands.

The best part of the dial is the dynamic pattern, which could be mistaken for guilloché. Instead, it’s a stamped dial with a ripple pattern. “Stamped” sounds less luxurious than “guilloché,” but the pattern designed by Yann von Kaenel, an independent engine-turning specialist, does look rich and luscious. The new 41mm Code 11.59 by Audemars Piguet Selfwinding in gray (CHF 22,800) is the best version. And because it felt right at home on my wrist, it had to be on my Fratello Favorites list. That rhymes, so it must be true.

The best watches of 2025 — Pick #5: Laventure Marine Type 3

This year, I fell in love with Laventure creation for the very first time. Clément Gaud, the man behind the brand, gave us the Marine Type 3 (CHF 4,200 ex. taxes). It’s available with either a black or full-lume white dial, and it’s the latter that’s on my list. The Marine Type 3 boasts a Grade 23 titanium case, and the design takes inspiration from 1980s Omega and Patek Philippe marine chronometers. The Marine Type 3 isn’t just accurate, though. It’s also a rugged-looking, robust watch with a 300m depth rating and an antimagnetic soft-iron cage inside. The stone-washed Grade 23 titanium exudes a powerful and purposeful appearance. Despite the modest 38mm diameter, 8.9mm profile, and 46.2mm length, the watch has a lot of presence. That’s thanks to the combination of the rough-looking titanium, the angular lines, and the proportionally enormous bezel.

There’s a lot of Grade 23 titanium to enjoy, and the gray metal makes the relatively small full-lume dial pop. That dial, featuring black printing and non-luminous sandblasted black hands, has a recessed center with hour numerals, minute markers, and the logo, along with a raised level with numerals for the seconds around the perimeter. Underneath the dial lies a non-visible soft-iron plate, which protects the movement from magnetic fields. Hidden between that layer and an all-metal case back beats a gold-plated, highly customized, and COSC-certified Sellita SW300-1 automatic movement. Finally, the Swiss-made, 2.3mm-thick domed Plexiglas crystal crowns the watch. I find the white-dial Marine Type 3 simply irresistible. It’s sold out for 2025, but hopefully, Laventure will make more next year.

Honorable mention: Behrens Ultra-Light 11G

I must quickly mention one of the most controversial watches I encountered this year, the purple Ultra-Light 11G ref. BHR030 (US$11,800). This striking love-it-or-hate-it creation is part of the Behrens Inventor series, which also includes the Ultra-Light 20G, for instance. The purple watch case is made of SPSCF. This material is a diamond-coated carbon fiber developed exclusively by Behrens. SPSCF is not just light but, thanks to the coating, also hard — an essential quality for a watch this thin and light. The weight didn’t suffer too much, as the watch, without the strap, weighs a mere 11 grams.

Apart from the color and the (absence of) weight, I find the 11G’s asymmetrical trapezoidal purple carbon case very appealing. The case has a 42mm span on the longest side, a 38mm diameter, and a slim 5.2mm profile; it is anything but thick. It’s also not too thin. It’s perfect for what it is — a quirky yet technically interesting, original, and colorful talking piece.

There you have it — my five favorite watches of 2025, plus an honorable mention. As I warned you, these six watches were selected strictly on subjective, personal, and often irrational grounds, making a rational discussion nearly impossible. Still, if you’d like to discuss or comment, please feel free to do so in the comments section below.