Superfine: we take a look at the best watches of the 2025 Met Gala
Jamie WeissEvery first Monday in May, the Met Gala transforms New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art into fashion’s most exclusive stage – a dazzling convergence of art, celebrity, and couture. Every year has a theme, and this year’s edition is themed “Tailored for You,” aligning with the Costume Institute’s exhibition, “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style,” which honours the profound legacy and future of Black fashion. But beyond the creative haute couture suiting looks and sculptural gowns, there were also plenty of cool watches. Here’s a closer look at some of the finest wristwear that graced the red carpet.
A$AP Rocky – Bulgari Octo Finissimo Ultra COSC
For such a black excellence-focused Met Gala, you couldn’t ask for a better co-chair than A$AP Rocky. Inarguably one of the most popular as well as best-dressed rappers in the entire music industry, Pretty Flacko brought some serious horological heat to the red carpet as well as a great outfit: the Bulgari Octo Finissimo Ultra COSC, which as of publishing remains the world’s thinnest production mechanical watch at just 1.70mm thick. As the name implies, it isn’t just the thinnest watch in the world, it’s also the world’s thinnest COSC-certified chronometer. Superfine indeed.
Tramell Tillman – Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso Tribute Duoface Tourbillon
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Actor Tramell Tillman, currently best known for his portrayal of Seth Milchick on Apple TV’s hit show Severance, chose a heavy hitter for the 2025 Met Gala – the Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso Tribute Duoface Tourbillon – a rather fitting choice considering the show centres around characters “severing” their personalities into “innie” and “outie” selves. In the case of this Reverso, the “outie” front Recto dial is a more conventional sunray silvered grey, while its “innie” back Verso dial exposes the gold bridges of its in-house calibre 847, masterfully decorated with guilloché, framing a black sunray sub-dial.
Dwyane Wade – Tiffany & Co. Eternity 32mm
Former basketball great Dwyane Wade was dripped out in Tiffany for the 2025 Met Gala, pairing an eclectic waistcoat covered in buttons with a Tiffany platinum brooch studded with diamonds of over 21 carats, Tiffany diamond studs, and most relevant to us, a 32mm Eternity watch – a feminine watch that looked truly tiny on D Wade’s massive wrists. This reference has a mother-of-pearl dial with a diamond-paved bezel and diamond indices, with each diamond cut differently: round brilliant, baguette, cushion, Tiffany True, marquise, Asscher, pear, oval, emerald, triangle and princess. A heart-shaped rubelite takes pride of place at 12 o’clock.
Damson Idris – IWC Ingenieur Automatic 40 Gold
Damson Idris had one of the most dramatic entrances to the Met Gala we’ve ever seen. The British actor turned up at the red carpet wearing a stylised Formula 1 race suit and racing helmet hand-embellished with nearly 20,000 blue, red, and white Swarovski crystals – reflecting his role as Joshua “Noah” Pearce in the upcoming F1 movie – only for two assistants to appear and tear the racing duds off him, revealing a red half-tartan suit underneath. Spectacular stuff. It was hard to spot, but he was also wearing the new red gold IWC Ingenieur Automatic 40 launched at Watches and Wonders in Geneva earlier this year.
Colman Domingo – unreleased Omega Speedmaster
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Seems the Met Gala co-chairs are wearing the hottest watches this year: actor and Omega “friend of the brand” Colman Domingo is pulling a Daniel Craig at the festivities, cheekily wearing what Omega describes as “an unreleased Speedmaster watch in 18K gold.” From what we can tell, we have a reverse panda dial and a Moonshine gold case and bracelet. Watch this space.
Henry Golding – Cartier Privé Tank à Guichets
British-Malaysian actor Henry Golding, best known for playing the romantic lead Nick Young in Crazy Rich Asians, wore one of our favourite watches of the year to the 2025 Met Gala: the Cartier Privé Tank à Guichets in yellow gold. He’s one of the first celebrities we’ve seen wear the jumping hour watch that took Watches and Wonders by storm. Faithful to the original 1928 design, this model features one subtle tweak: the hour and dragging minute displays are tone-matched to its alligator leather strap.
Walter Goggins – Vacheron Constantin Traditionnelle Complete Calendar Openface
Eclectic actor Walton Goggins, who’s experienced something of a career resurgence after starring in recent hit TV shows including Fallout, The Righteous Gemstones and the third season of The White Lotus, had a similarly eclectic outfit for the 2025 Met Gala: a long cape-like coat and dress with a deliberately unfinished aesthetic. However, the watch on this wrist was beautifully finished: the new Vacheron Constantin Traditionnelle Complete Calendar Openface, a 370-piece limited edition that boasts a hand-guilloché Maltese cross pattern to mark Vacheron Constantin’s 270th anniversary. Cased in platinum, it’s an interesting mix of old and new-school, with its in-house 2460 QCL/270 complete calendar movement depicting the day and date via exposed sapphire discs.
Jeremy Pope – double-signed, vintage Patek Philippe Golden Ellipse
I can’t say I’m a big fan of actor Jeremy Pope’s hessian sack-like outfit, but I really like the watch he chose to wear. It’s a vintage Patek Philippe Golden Ellipse that appears to be double-signed, although I can’t work out which retailer’s name is on it. From the positioning and length of the text, I’d guess either Gübelin or Tiffany & Co. Maybe Beyer? Either way, it’s a very lovely watch.
Jalen Hurts – Breitling Navitimer B01 Chronograph 43
Jalen Hurts, the quarterback who led the Philadelphia Eagles to win the 2025 Super Bowl, getting named Super Bowl MVP in the process, made his Met Gala debut wearing an ice-blue-dialled Breitling Navitimer B01 Chronograph 43. In a sea of precious metal-cased, gem-set jewellery watches, Hurts’ comparatively simple steel pilot’s chronograph represented a nice change of pace.
Saquon Barkley – H. Moser & Cie. Endeavour Tourbillon Concept Vantablack
Hurts’ teammate Saquon Barkley, the Eagles’ star running back, kept things classy and understated with a simple tux (embellished only with some ribbing on his left arm) and a H. Moser & Cie. Endeavour Tourbillon Concept Vantablack. A watch that’s simultaneously both super simple and very complicated, its dial is featureless and painted in Vantablack, a material made up of millions of carbon nanotubes that captures 99.965% of visible light, creating a black hole-like effect. Well, I say featureless: there’s a whopping great tourbillon at 6 o’clock, which is even more stark in contrast with the Vantablack dial.
Angela Bassett – Glashütte Original Serenade Luna
With an exhibition theme focusing on men’s tailoring, 2025’s Met Gala has been a year where the men have outshone the women for once – but that didn’t mean there weren’t some amazing feminine suiting looks on the red carpet, nor did it mean that there weren’t some ladies with amazing watches. The standout for me was Angela Bassett’s Glashütte Original Serenade Luna: GO isn’t a brand you readily associate with the red carpet set, but this piece, with its combination of classic feminine mother-of-pearl and diamond looks and a nicely finished in-house moonphase movement, is a cut above.
Shaboozey – Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Selfwinding Turquoise
Shaboozey, an American rapper/singer/songwriter who’s become an unexpected country music star thanks to his hit single A Bar Song (Tipsy), has widely been dubbed as having the best outfit of the 2025 Met Gala, donning an inspired take on a suit with a massive hat and strings upon strings of turquiose. Naturally, it made sense to pair that with a turquoise-dialled, yellow gold-cased, 37mm Audemars Piguet Royal Oak – a very on-trend wristwatch in of itself.
Pusha T – Rolex Cosmograph Daytona ‘Rainbow’
Last but certainly not least, rapper Pusha T wore an off-catalogue Rolex Daytona ‘Rainbow’ with a similarly iced-out red double-breasted suit. One of the flashiest takes on Rolex’s most coveted watch, it features a bezel set with rainbow-gradated sapphires as well as rainbow-gradated indices and diamond-set flanks. Unlike most watches you’ll see at red carpet events like these, which are provided to celebrities by brands, the nature of this piece means that this is almost certainly a watch that King Push actually owns.