7 Elite New Watches Unveiled at 2026's First Major Watch Event

Arriving a full three months ahead of Watches and Wonders Geneva—a.k.a. the biggest horological trade show of the year and the source of its most important new releases— January’s LVMH Watch Week provides a much-needed dose of fresh complications, dial colors, and models to keep watch aficionados going through the winter. Louis Vuitton has been steadily upping its watch game in recent years with bangers like the Tambour and Monterey, and shows no signs of slowing down this year with its latest dual-time Escale. Last year’s Daniel Roth Extra Plat Souscription came in hot with svelte proportions and an elegant take on a simple time-only design, and the recently revived brand continues to turn up the heat with a new skeletonized version. TAG Heuer, always reliable for a fresh take on a classic motorsports design, has added a split-seconds mechanism to its ever-popular Carrera chronograph. Here’s everything you need to know about these and the other highlights of LVMH Watch Week 2026. Louis Vuitton Escale Twin Zone For the great majority of travelers, a GMT hand neatly solves the problem of tracking two or three time zones simultaneously. A problem can arise, however, in the form of the 30- or 45-minute offsets—time zones that don’t conform to a perfect number of hours ahead of or behind GMT—found in places like India and Central Australia. To solve this issue, Louis Vuitton offers the Escale Twin Zone: Rather than using a single GMT hand to indicate a second time zone, it uses two full sets of hands—one regular, one skeletonized—the second of which boasts an independently adjustable minute hand to deal with pesky 30- or 45-minute offsets, plus an hour hand that can be easily jumped in one-hour increments. Available in rose gold or a diamond-set platinum edition, this clever instrument includes an elegant day/night indicator linked to home time and the new cal. LFT VO 15.01 movement from the horological savants at LV’s La Fabrique du Temps. For the first-class traveler, there could scarcely be a more elegant way to track a second time zone.​ TAG Heuer Carrera Split-Seconds Chronograph Over the past few years, TAG Heuer has flexed its horological muscles with a series of split-seconds Monaco chronographs, a complication that allows for the tracking of two separate events (like two cars racing on a track) via the use of dual centrally-mounted seconds hands. This year, TAG Heuer is carting over this sophisticated system to its flagship Carrera Chronograph collection: Coming in at 42mm in brushed and polished Grade 5 titanium, it boasts a smoked translucent dial that offers a view of the cal. TH81-00 ticking away within. It also features lots of colorful, racing-inspired accents throughout, with red-accented chronograph counters that have the look of dashboard gauges, and matching top-stitching on its black rubber strap. An über-complicated piece like this doesn’t come cheap, to be sure—but it should look positively baller on-wrist when you’re tearing around the track in your GT3 RS.​ Hublot Big Bang Unico Samuel Ross Virgil Abloh protégé Samuel Ross is no stranger to the luxury watch world. Having grown up with a deep interest in tool watches, he was the perfect partner to collaborate with Hublot on a series of models that put his unique approach to industrial design front and center. Aiming to reduce weight both literally and visually, the veteran British creative director and artist added his signature honeycomb motif to the all-black Unico’s dial and its matching rubber strap, resulting in a piece with an aesthetic that bridges the military and luxury worlds that continue to inspire him.​ Zenith Defy Revival A3643 While it may not be the most expensive, most complicated, or most flashy of Zenith’s new releases—that honor is probably reserved for the rose gold Skyline Tourbillon Skeleton—the Defy Revival A3643 brings a “cool” factor that’s difficult to define, yet immediately apparent. It could be the wacky octagonal case and 14-sided bezel that pulls you in, or it could be the watch's “ladder” bracelet, a Zenith signature. Either way, the silver dial with applied indices and a 4:30 date seals the deal, putting the finishing touches on a product that is so damn ‘70s, yet also fits in with the 2020s’ profusion of oddball high-end independent designs. And though it’s available in other, more colorful dial variants, the silver, we’d argue, tampers down what could otherwise be too much of a statement piece into something more wearable day-to-day. Bulgari Maglia Milanese Monete It’s hardly surprising that Bulgari debuted a beautiful dress watch complete with an ancient coin, a gorgeous, gold mesh bracelet, and the world’s smallest round mechanical movement. What remains to be seen is whether a watch like the Maglia Milanese Monete will be adopted by men as well as women: While it’s ostensibly a ladies’ design, the post-COVID world has taught us that 1) small watches are back 2) dress watches are in 3) gold watches are hip and 4) confident men in the know embrace numbers, 1, 2, and 3. We wouldn’t be surprised to see this teeny tiny ticker on a red carpet in the near future. Daniel Roth Extra Plat Rose Gold Skeleton Last year, Daniel Roth stole our hearts with the Extra Plat Souscription, a spectacular, extra-thin gold dress watch with a sophisticated guilloché dial. Now, the Louis Vuitton-owned brand is back with a skeletonized version that somehow manages to outdo its predecessor: Being a Daniel Roth joint, it’s of course housed in the brand’s signature double-ellipse case, which in this instance measures 35.5mm in diameter and is made of 18K 5N rose gold. But the dial is the real pièce de résistance—gold bridges and plates specially arranged to maximize transparency and legibility allow an unobstructed view all the way through the watch, while a set of arrow-tipped blue hands indicates the time. Chalk up another win for Louis Vuitton’s watchmaking division, La Fabrique du Temps. Gérald Genta Geneva Time Only Marrone and Grafite While you might know Gérald Genta for his audacious Royal Oak and Nautilus watches, the brilliant Swiss designer created thousands of other, lesser-known timepieces during his prolific career. The Geneva collection, for one, updates a 1970s design into a more modern silhouette: With a cushion-shaped case, contrasting surfaces, a stepped bezel, and a cool single-lug strap-attachment system, it’s available in either rose gold with a grained brass dial or a white gold case with a grained, silver-shaded brass dial. Powered by an automatic Zenith Elite automatic movement, the Geneva Time Only measures a discrete 8.15mm thick—perfect for slipping under a cuff until it’s time to impress your fellow watch obsessives.