The Best Dress Watches of 2025

As the end of the year draws nigh and the festive season is about to kick off, we need to look back at what has been a rather surprising dozen months for the watch industry. Although the market isn’t at its best, we’ve rarely seen so many watch launches. As every year, the MONOCHROME team gathers and selects the best models in each category, starting now with the dress watch. A slightly overlooked category in recent years, we’ve seen a great return of the classic, compact, and elegant timepiece, which makes our selection of the Best Dress Watches of 2025 both easier and more complex. But this is what we came up with. 

Breguet Souscription 2025

This year, Breguet celebrated its 250th anniversary, and the celebrations started strong, to say the least, with this stunning vision of what could have been a Souscription watch today. While A.L. Breguet was known for his technical innovations, he was also a great businessman and created the Souscription pocket watch, an economic model to help sustain the growth of his company. Modelled after these antique pocket watches, Breguet released the Souscription 2025, a watch that feels Breguet from head to toe and yet redefines everything. A new gold alloy, a new case design, more refined and more compact, a clean single-hand enamel dial, and a stunning, antique-looking movement on the back. The watch is deceptively simple, highly detailed and historically relevant. A winning combination that was rewarded at the GPHG 2025.

For more details about the Breguet Souscription 2025, you can read our review here.

Chopard L.U.C Quattro Mark IV

It almost feels too easy to include a Chopard L.U.C in such an article… But we can’t help ourselves from being stunned by the direction the brand has taken in recent years. While already acclaimed for the finesse of its movements, Chopard has worked intensively on its design, as evidenced in the brand’s latest creations, such as this L.U.C Quattro Mark IV. More compact than before, sleeker and yet more refined, more elegant but also more casual, this watch, available in gold too, has something truly appealing in its combination of light blue and platinum. Measuring only 39mm in diameter, its 10mm thickness might appear a bit high for a dress watch, but remember that inside is a movement with no fewer than 4 mainsprings, resulting in an exceptional 9-day (216-hour) power reserve.

For more details about the Platinum edition of the Chopard L.U.C Quattro Mark IV, you can consult our hands-on article here.

Daniel Roth Extra-Plat Rose Gold

Since the revival of Daniel Roth under Louis Vuitton, we’ve seen some pretty spectacular watches, including three handsome tourbillon models – in yellow gold, rose gold or platinum. But when it comes to sheer elegance in an originally designed case, nothing beats the beauty and compactness of the Extra Plat, and specifically the latest rose gold version. What sets this version apart is the combination of the soft rose gold colour of the case with the straight guilloché dial in gold and grey. A very elegant colour scheme housed in a compact case and powered by a handsome, tastefully finished in-house, hand-wound movement that befits the whole concept.

For more details about the Daniel Roth Extra Plat Rose Gold Edition, you can read our hands-on article here.

Laurent Ferrier Classic Origin Beige

Incredibly elegant… This is how we summarised the watch in our hands-on article. A warm red gold case paired with a soft beige dial makes a good thing even better. Indeed, the Classic Origin by Laurent Ferrier has always been one of our favourite models for its quintessentially LF character. Hand-wound, sleek, soft in design. All previous editions were made of titanium and paired with either a silver, green or blue dial. But with the launch of the Beige edition, we’re on another level of refinement. This watch isn’t really new, sharing all elements with previous models, but there is something absolutely captivating about its colour scheme. Pure class.

For more details about the Laurent Ferrier Classic Origin Beige, you can consult this first look article.

Patek Philippe Calatrava 6196P

The classic Calatrava was gone… up until its return this year, which is, in all fairness, big news. Indeed, there is a new watch in the 96 lineage of Patek Philippe: the 6196P, the latest version of what is widely considered the blueprint for the dress watch. Following the discontinuation of the 5196 in 2022, Patek is returning to its roots here with a slim, sleek watch that has grown slightly to 38mm in diameter and 9.33mm in thickness. The shape remains what we love in the Calatrava. The salmon dial is superb, even though the blackened hands and markers have prompted debate. Importantly, the movement has been updated to a far more modern twin-barrel architecture with 65h power reserve. And we can expect more traditional versions in the near future, in several gold alloys, with more classic dials too.

For more details about the Patek Philippe Calatrava 6196P, please read our hands-on article.

Rolex Perpetual 1908 on a Settimo Bracelet

This watch caused quite a stir when it was revealed. Well, in fact, it’s not the watch itself that made noise but rather the bracelet. The watch itself is no different from what we saw in 2023, when Rolex replaced the Cellini with the Perpetual 1908 collection. This year, Rolex introduced a whole new metal bracelet design named Settimo. A fancy name for a fancy bracelet. Not a Jubilee, not a President, not a beads-of-rice: this new Settimo bracelet is made of 7 contoured links, a dressy option now offered in yellow gold, paired with a surprising open-end-link construction. But even these are overengineering and patented… Classic Rolex, except for the look and the surprisingly elegant result.

For the details about the Rolex Perpetual 1908 on the Settimo Bracelet, please consult our hands-on article here.