From the watch brand favoured by The King, to the £350,000 model featuring more astronomical features than a rocketship, here’s how to hide your money on your wrist

The world of watches has a complicated relationship with modesty. In Geneva, the watch world’s spiritual home, the biggest brands pride themselves on their rooftop-mounted neon signs that cast illuminations across the lake. At its biggest annual gathering, an exposition called Watches & Wonders held in the same city, from which I have just returned, they create four-storey monuments to their craft and compete over the most extravagant decorations.

If one suspends two racing cars in mid-air on their stand, another will import a real-life stunt plane to decorate theirs; a four-metre-tall diving tank faces off against an immersive space station makeover for your attention. And yet watchmaking remains a fundamentally quiet discipline with most workshops and factories tucked away in the Swiss hills. When you visit one, the white-coated watchmakers are so quiet you could hear the proverbial pin drop (which would also trigger an inquiry; those parts aren’t cheap).

It’s the same story with the watches themselves. Some are all outright extravagance, but most traditional brands try to walk a line between the age-old values of discretion and taste, and the sense that in this socially-saturated era, customers expect to see wares flaunted with the restraint of a Kardashian-led campaign.

All of this makes it relatively rare to find a watch that doesn’t feel the need to shout. But we haven’t given up. In fact, we have put together a selection of the latest releases that represent outstanding design and engineering, but won’t make people think you’re wearing it as a substitute for a personality (or attract unwanted attention of the very worst kind — on which point we can only add that anything valuable should be worn with care).

First up is Vacheron Constantin who is looking remarkably fresh-faced, despite the fact that it celebrated its 270th year in business last year — with so many superlative creations the brand had to hire out the Louvre.

They’ve given us a much more subtle star for 2026 — in the form of a new Overseas Ultra-Thin. It’s not a total shrinking violet, courtesy of its finely-faceted bracelet, but it enjoys the camouflage of platinum which could be mistaken for stainless steel from a distance, but on the wrist, feels emphatically anything but.

The 39.5 millimetre watch is only 7.35 millimetres thick, and therein lies the appeal for devotees of the brand. Vacheron Constantin discontinued its previous Ultra-Thin some years ago, and has brought the model back with a new in-house movement, the Calibre 2550. From one of the most prestigious watchmakers in the world, that goes a long way towards justifying the £103,000 price tag.

Platinum is also the trick of choice at Cartier, whose off-catalogue Tank Louis Cartier is to all intents and purposes as low-key and ubiquitous as you’d expect from the 129-year old design masterpiece.

The tell-tale signs are there for faithful fans of the brand, but the blue sapphire cabochon in the watch’s crown has been replaced with a red ruby — which indicates that it’s been made out of platinum. Lately, Cartier has taken to offering these rare models with a burgundy leather strap to match.

In general, opting for a slim dress watch on a leather strap is a sure-fire way to fly under the radar — a style rule that Patek Philippe has also embraced. The brand doesn’t have a single celebrity ambassador or sports partnership to its name, though you’d never describe it as entirely discreet. Its Nautilus range, which celebrated 50 years this year with a pair of limited editions and an eight-day desk clock (all in white gold or platinum, naturally), is the status symbol par excellence.

Among its important 2026 launches is an enormous 47 millimetre Celestial Sunrise and Sunset grand complication dedicated to tracking numerous astronomical functions (none so astronomical as the price, however, which is an equally arresting £353,210) and the Golden Ellipse, a delicate, Modernist creation originally introduced in 1968 and barely touched since. The very gently updated iteration is smaller, suitably restrained, but not quite as dainty. Inside, an automatic ultra-thin movement beats happily along, but you wouldn’t know it. The Ellipse has a solid back, perhaps the ultimate statement of watchmaking discretion these days.

The most emphatic watch on our list is the one that industry insiders almost universally agreed emerged as Watches & Wonders’ star of the show. Parmigiani Fleurier, which likely won’t be on the casual collector’s radar, has built a reputation for mechanical quality since it first started watchmaking 30 years ago. Among watch-spotters (yes, they exist), Parmigiani is also best-known for being the brand most often sported by The King. In recent years, it has undergone something of a design revolution under the current CEO, Guido Terreni.

The new Chronograph Mysterieux is as clever as it is understated: unlike most chronographs, which pack the watch dial with more information than the fine print of your mobile phone contract, it has a single button and no numbered scales whatsoever. Instead, at the press of the button, the main hands snap to 12 o’clock and start measuring the time, while a previously concealed hour and minute hand carry on keeping the time of day.

It’s frighteningly complicated underneath, and makes for quite a good party trick — if your own sense of modesty deserts you. Like the Vacheron Constantin and Cartier, it is cased in platinum (and stainless steel), and costs CHF36,900 (about £34,997).

Also doing much more than it appears — like your smartest friend, who never appears to be paying much attention before delivering the most appropriate and incisive remark — is the H. Moser & Cie Endeavour Perpetual Calendar. A mainstay of the company’s range, it is released this year in tantalum, a heavy metal that’s not quite precious, but prized by watch geeks for its blue-grey sheen and the fact that it’s so hard to machine, only the most contrarian manufacturers can be bothered.

The rest of the watch has had a monotone grey makeover, which is a lot more alluring than it sounds thanks to the delicate mix of textured finishes. Its genius lies in the fact that unlike every other perpetual calendar on the market, it feels no need to display data like the day of the week, phase of the moon or leap year on its dial. Instead, there is just a date window, and a very small arrowhead hand at the centre beneath the hours and minutes. This uses the 12 regular points of the watch dial to indicate the month, rather than the hours — although H. Moser, in its constant quest for minimalism, has done away with the markers as well.

In fact, it hasn’t stopped there: there isn’t even a maker’s logo anywhere to be seen. Now that’s modest.