OPINION: It’s jewellery’s time to shine

Jewellery has played second fiddle to watches for some time now. The powerhouse sales of the big watch groups and brands have proven irresistible for retailers, while culturally there’s a feeling that watch collecting communities offer a level of obsessive passion and thirst for knowledge that high jewellery simply can’t compete with. But is all that changing? Watch and jewellery journalist and consultant Rachael Taylor finds out.

Dare I say it… jewellery is outperforming watches. At least that’s how it feels at some of the major luxury groups in recent months. Take Richemont as an example. In its results for the quarter ending December 31st, sales at its jewellery maisons were up 14%, while its specialist watchmakers grew just 7%. 

While it can be hard to separate out the watch sales from the jewellery at luxury brands that offer both, it seems that wherever there is high jewellery, there is a bright spot. At Kering, for example, its third-quarter results reported that its “jewellery houses saw very solid momentum, with revenue up double digits”. Total group revenue, meanwhile, was down 10% to €3.4 billion.

LVMH’s watches and jewellery division, meanwhile, outperformed expectations with revenue of €10.4 billion in 2025, exceeding forecasts by 1.4%. Within those results, it noted that Tiffany & Co.’s annual Blue Book high-jewellery collection “delivered an unprecedented performance for the maison” last year, while Bulgari’s Polychroma high jewellery collection “generated record sales of multi-million-dollar pieces”. 

Then there is the issue of divestments. While Watches of Switzerland Group shored up its portfolio with the acquisition of Italian jewellery brand Roberto Coin in 2024 for $130 million, Richemont has shucked off Baume & Mercier. Rumours started to circle in November, and by January it was official: the 38-year relationship was over, with Richemont selling to the Damiani Group.

Now, the unthinkable… could Richemont say goodbye to Jaeger-LeCoultre too? Astrid Wendlandt, the pen behind the Miss Tweed digital platform that is closely read by luxury execs for insider gossip, thinks so. She reported on her website in February on rumours that the group could be set to sell the watch brand to its CEO Jérôme Lambert. 

All this raises the question: are the luxury conglomerates turning away from watches? For so long, jewellery has been in the shadow of the watch brands among these groups, but now it seems the tide is turning as jewellery sales strengthen and watch brands change hands. 

Could this open up opportunity for watch brands to align more closely with jewellery? Historically, jewellery watches were an add-on: a novelty to woo female customers, with little horological investment. But this is changing. 

Bulgari has invested heavily in jewellery watches—and one-of-a-kind high-jewellery watches—in recent years, including developing the Piccolissimo manual winding mechanical movement, a 2.5mm-thick calibre designed specifically to fit in small case sizes. The micro-movement was developed entirely in-house and offers a simple hours and minutes function via 102 components, with a 30-hour power reserve. 

It has found success with such sales—incorporating watches into its high-jewellery presentations—which increasingly focus on single designs with price tags exceeding €1 million. Its latest offering fitted with the Piccolissimo was unveiled at LVMH Watch Week in Milan in January, the Maglia Milanese Monete. The watch is an homage to the brand’s Monete jewellery collection, first introduced in the 1960s and notable for its use of real antique coins. In the case of this watch, it is a single Roman coin from 198–297 AD, depicting Emperor Caracalla. The coin is mounted in gold and used to conceal the dial in the style of a secret watch—a style favoured within high-jewellery watches that melds wristwatch and bracelet. 

Another interesting element of the Maglia Milanese Monete is the bracelet. For the first time, it used solid rose gold to weave a Milanese mesh bracelet, vastly upgrading the classic strap style. 

“[The Maglia Milanese Monete] is a revelation, offering a unique opportunity to discover the maison’s world of watchmaking and jewellery,” notes Fabrizio Buonamassa Stigliani, Bulgari’s product creation executive creator. “The essence of this object lies in its flexibility, an inspiration that gave rise to [this] unexpected project.”

Flexibility also characterised Bulgari’s other jewellery watch launches at LVMH Watch Week. The Tubogas Manchette takes inspiration from a 1974 archival model, with individual polished gold links, set with 12 carats of diamonds, assembled onto a springy titanium blade that wraps round the wrist. It also released two new Serpenti Seduttori Automatic models, one with a malachite hardstone dial, and the other notable for the 117 diamonds set into the supple gold scales of its bracelet. 

Elsewhere during the Week, Louis Vuitton utilised the skillsets of its goldsmiths and lapidarists to offer up watches that prioritised traditional jewellery crafts. A new addition to its Tambour Convergence montre à guichet collection used hand-turned guilloche engraving to decorate the rose gold cover that obscures most of the dial. It also continued its experiments with hardstone dials, adding a tiger’s eye dial to its chronometer-certified Escale model. 

Tiffany & Co., as you would expect, also melded jewellery techniques and watchmaking in its LVMH Watch Week offerings, with a keen focus on diamond setting. What was interesting to note was that these watches offered up elevated horology. Its Eternity Baguette watches have hour markers set with stones in 12 different gem cuts, and bezels with invisibly set baguette-cut diamonds or blue-toned gems. Inside, is a self-winding mechanical movement, and this marks the first time that Tiffany & Co. has offered such a calibre in a non-limited Eternity watch. 

The jeweller’s other launches were the Sixteen Stone Mother-of-Pearl Watch, based on a design by legendary Tiffany & Co. jeweller Jean Schlumberger. Here, the calibre is a quartz, and the magic is led by “the skill of Tiffany & Co.’s goldsmiths and jewellery craftspeople,” with a snow-set diamond case, and a free-spinning diamond-set on the dial that  apparently required 25 hours of dedicated craftsmanship. 

Even its non-jewellery watch launch—the Tiffany Timer, a celebration of the 160th anniversary of its invention of one of the first American stopwatches—held a jewellery-related surprise. Flip the timepiece over and you’ll find a tiny, hand-sculpted recreation of the bird from its famous Bird on a Rock brooch design perched on an open-worked winding rotor. 

Jewellery watches have a distinct audience, and—depending on how high a brand is willing to climb—a distinct price bracket. But with jewellery riding high in the luxury world, it seems these flashy wrist adornments are starting to assume a more serious role in the market.