Over the past few years, watches have been getting… smaller. But that’s only part of the story. The real shift has been towards pieces with a little more romance: vintage-inspired proportions, sculptural silhouettes and designs that feel as much like jewellery as they do timepieces.
Which makes yellow gold feel less like your dad’s retirement watch, and more like the obvious choice. Rich, warm and quietly glamorous, it’s been quietly popping up on some of the industry’s most covetable new releases—and these are the ones we’d wear.
Cartier Tortue 18K yellow gold small watch
Cartier
Cartier always has a stacked line-up at Watches and Wonders, but the one this year that really stole our hearts was the Tortue. After teasing collectors with a Cartier Prive revival in 2024, the maison has finally welcomed the more-than-a-century-old design (it dates back to 1912) back as a full collection.
Across eight new versions, Cartier has subtly modernised the icon with softer, rounder proportions and a refreshed dial that swaps the traditional guilloche and railway minute track for an embossed texture and minimalist dotted markers. There are diamond-soaked showpieces and extraordinary Metiers d’Art Panthèee editions, but it’s the simplest one (pictured here) that lingers.
Rendered in plain yellow gold without a single diamond in sight, this particular Tortue reminds us that elegance rarely needs to raise its voice. Might we add: at 33mm, it’s also that perfect Goldilocks size that should appeal to watch wearers of all stripes.
Bvlgari Serpenti Tubogas 18K yellow gold and steel watch with diamonds
Bvlgari
Since first wrapping itself around wrists in the 1940s, Bvlgari’s Serpenti has become one of the few women’s timepieces that’s staked a lasting spot in the traditionally male-dominated world of watches, thanks to its innovative melding of jewellery-making techniques with horology.
For 2026, Bvlgari gives the icon another twist with four limited-edition Serpenti Tubogas Studs Capsule models. The signature coiling bracelet is now punctuated with rows of pyramidal gold studs lifted from the maison’s jewellery archives, while three of out the four editions revive Bvlgari’s striking gold and steel aesthetic from the 1970s — pairing precious gold with industrial steel — a combination that challenged traditional ideas of luxury long before mixed metals became commonplace.
Chanel Premiere Galon 18K yellow gold watch
Chanel
When Chanel launched the Premiere – its first timepiece – in 1987, it wasn’t trying to make another watch; it was trying to make a point. Most women’s watches at the time leaned on masculine codes—shrunken versions of men’s designs, all about function and a certain flashiness (being status symbols and all that jazz). The Premiere went the other way: its octagonal case mirrored the stopper of the house’s iconic N°5 bottle, and its chain bracelet came straight from the house’s quilted bag.
Its latest iteration, the Premiere Galon, swaps the OG’s signature interwoven leather-and-chain strap for a gold bangle shaped in the form of a galon – or twisted braid in French – a change inspired by one of Gabrielle Chanel’s most ingenious hacks. You see, she used braids to trim her jackets not simply for decoration, but to give the soft tweed structure; the braid acted as a frame, sharpening the silhouette, adding just enough weight so the fabric fell beautifully as the wearer moved.
The result is more jewellery than watch: a sculptural 18-carat yellow gold bangle with a sleek black lacquer dial, pared back to its purest form—no numbers, no markers. There are also two diamond-set versions if you want extra sparkle, but if you ask us, the whole watch is a gem.
Rolex Oyster Perpetual 28 18K yellow gold watch
Rolex
Yes, Rolex’s Day-Date 40 is the release grabbing all the headlines this year among its 2026 line-up, thanks to the model being outfitted in Rolex’s new Jubilee Gold, a proprietary alloy with subtle hints of yellow, grey and pink.
But don’t overlook the Oyster Perpetual 28. Rendered in 18K yellow gold, it gives one of Rolex’s most understated watches a quietly luxurious refresh, complete with a green stone lacquer dial and, for the first time, natural heliotrope stone hour markers at 3, 6 and 9 o’clock.
Piaget Swinging Pebble 18K yellow gold sautoir watch with verdite
Piaget
If there’s one brand that knows how to make a watch look like jewellery, it’s Piaget. In 1969, the maison made waves with its Swinging Sautoirs—necklace watches that blurred the line between jewellery and timepiece.
The new Swinging Pebbles collection picks up where they left off, concealing a tiny watch inside a pendant carved from a single piece of ornamental stone – a crazy technical feat, if you ask us. There are three stone variations—tiger’s eye, verdite and pietersite—each suspended from a twisted chain that nods to the maison’s long-standing expertise in goldsmithing. It’s whimsical, tactile and beautifully unconventional—exactly the sort of jewellery-first watch Piaget tends to do so well at.