I Tried Out 2024’s Biggest Watch Trend—and Totally Fell In Love


This is an edition of the newsletter Box + Papers, Cam Wolf’s weekly deep dive into the world of watches. Sign up here.


I learned a hard lesson over the past couple of weeks: Instagram is not real life. Reality does not offer the gentle contouring of Facetune nor the constant little niblets of like-induced serotonin. And perhaps most surprising and devastating of all, no matter how often a red-hot watch trend has popped up on your explore page in 2024, it turns out no one actually cares that much about your stone-dial watch IRL.

Stone dials, for the uninitiated, are exactly what they sound like: watch faces crafted from vibrant stones like malachite, jade, onyx, tiger’s eye, jasper, coral, or lapis lazuli.

Now that 2024 is nearly in the rearview mirror, I feel safe declaring that stone dials were the biggest watch trend of the year. While vintage Piagets led the charge in that regard, dealers also moved plenty of throwback stone-dial Patek Philippes and Rolexes with equal zeal. Cruising through Watch Instagram felt like touring the world’s sexiest quarry. And it wasn’t just old watches riding the stone-dial wave: Lapis and tiger’s eye also anchored new releases from upstarts like Toledano & Chan and Berneron.

But arguably the year’s most important new stone-dial watch is the latest spin on the Baltic Prismic, which the affordable French watchmaker released in September in lapis lazuli, green jade, and red agate versions. Compared to the $10,000 Piaget pieces and $4,000 Toledano & Chan drops we mentioned earlier, the Prismic’s €1,310 (about $1,418) retail price was an absolute steal—by far the most affordable way into the trend. Naturally, I was overjoyed to hear about the stone-dial Baltic and moved quickly to acquire one. But that’s when my reality check hit hard.

The Prismic dials in green jade, lapis lazuli, and red agate





Source link

About The Author

Scroll to Top