Imagine being asked to choose the Top 10 Swiss Watch brands in 2024! Imagine it! Where would you start? There are so many to choose from, assembling anything remotely close to a definitive list is impossible, but, at the very least, we can hope any such attempt (futile as it may be) will at least inspire debate (so let us know what you would have done differently in the comments below).
To give this list some semblance of structure, I’m going to break it down into ascending price points starting with the sub-£500 category and running all the way up to the £100,000+ bracket with the following price limits in between £1,000, £2,000, £5,000, £10,000, £15,000, £25,000, £50,000, and £80,000. Given that most brands straddle more than one price bracket, I’ve made my selections based on the following criterion: from which brand would I buy if I had that amount of money in my pocket?
The Top 10 Best Swiss Watch Brands
Table of content
Swatch
The sub-£500 bracket
The world’s first “collectable” watch brand is still one of the best. Although a budget of £500 would see you pocket a lot of change, there are few better things to buy at the most accessible end of the industry. Swatch is an iconic brand, doesn’t take itself too seriously, is a beloved gateway drug respected by serious collectors, and a surprisingly versatile pop culture stalwart that can elicit smiles and approving nods in equal measure.
Peren
Up to £1,000
Peren watches. While the brand has a Transylvanian heart, the products are strictly Swiss-made and all well under the 1K barrier. Definitely worth a look if having something a bit more off the beaten track is important to you.
Nivada Grenchen
Up to £2,000
It’s tough to choose a brand that operates close to but consistently under the £1,000 mark, but Nivada Grenchen just about qualifies with the majority of its non-mechanical-chronograph models sneaking under the limit.
When it comes to a healthy mixture of credibility and coolness, Nivada Grenchen is hard to beat. Revived from the dead by the experienced and energetic Guillaume Laidet (who has many brands in his stable such as Vulcain, Excelsior Park, and the recently released Space One), NG produces well-priced watches that take the best bits from old-school designs and realise them with modern manufacturing techniques.
Longines
Up to £5,000
Low-hanging fruit, maybe, and perhaps not the most popular choice given the recently bloated pricing structure. However, the new(ish) Spirit line (especially the heavenly GMT collab with Hodinkee), saves Longines’ blushes in my mind and helps it cling to the top step of Swiss watchmaking, if only by its fingertips.
OMEGA
Up to £10,000
I really wish I could have slotted Omega in the previous category, but the reality of the world right now is that if you want to get your hands on one of Omega’s more desirable models, the impact will be somewhere between the five and ten K mark.
But, and I mean this seriously, it’s still worth it. The market value of modern Omegas is about right, even though it feels very swollen in comparison to a few years ago. Rolex started this trend of rapid price increases and eventually the Olympic sponsor buckled under the pressure and followed suit.
What would I buy with a budget of £10,000 from Omega? I’d be looking at the 50th Anniversary Speedmaster with a silver dial that sports a cool Snoopy motif in one of the sub-dials and an awesome case back animation that plays out upon activation of the chronograph function.
Rolex
Up to £15,000
Which Rolex commands €15,000, you might ask. My pick, with that budget in my pocket, would be “old faithful” — a rolesor Rolex DateJust. It remains the most eternal of truly modern watches and is a choice no one, not even the most finicky of watch fanatics, could disparage.
One thing that might rankle with the purists, however, is the price. A bog-standard Rolesor DateJust commanding five figures may seem bonkers, but it is the world in which we live.
Audemars Piguet
Up to £25,000
Truth be told, I don’t want to put AP on this list personally, but I feel there’s no way around the brand’s historical significance and continued relevance.
The Royal Oak, the industry’s first truly luxurious steel sports watch, is still sought after, with skyrocketing retail prices made to look halfway reasonable thanks to the stratospheric cost of picking these models up on the pre-owned market. If you’re fortunate (and rich), you can still snag a Royal Oak for the bargain RRP of £24,800.
HYT
Up to £50,000
Until the recent repositioning of this intriguing brand, HYT would have been duking it out (and losing) to Patek in the category below.
However, under the leadership of Vahe Vartzbed, the brand has turned its attention to building out its product offering at the price point it originally occupied when it debuted over a decade ago.
Since it stormed onto the scene, wowing onlookers with its undeniable novel and somewhat sci-fi fluidic hour indicator, the brand has risen from the dead a couple of times already. Will this iteration be the one that finally takes flight and elevates one of the
industry’s most interesting makers to the status it deserves? Only time will tell, but the new T1 models have certainly seen that journey off to a good start.
Patek Philippe
Up to £75,000
Whether you desire a Patek Philippe as much as you do other brands on this list (and all the other brands that didn’t make it) is kind of by the by. Patek Philippe would have been chosen regardless of the price bracket. It is the first name off my lips even though I personally have never had much love for it and its wares.
Although a good, old-fashioned steel Nautilus is a fine-looking thing, the hype surrounding that piece and the staunch conservatism of the rest of the catalogue have turned me (and many others) off a little bit.
But quality matters. No one in their right mind would argue that what Patek Philippe puts out in the world is not exceptional. It just also happens to be exceptionally expensive. If I had a budget of £80,000 burning a hole in my pocket, I’d go for the new white gold Nautilus Chronograph (with its striking denim strap). Reference 5980/60G comes in a touch under 70K, which means you will, from this budget at least, be able to travel first class en route to the retailer.
F. P. Journe
Over £100,000
Being liked is never a bad thing for sales, but, it would seem, that being respected beats it every time. Journe himself is known to keep most people at arm’s length. He is a tempest of talent and like many before him, similarly blessed with gifts of which others could only dream, he is something of a loner. His watches are therefore likely the best way to get to know the man himself. They communicate a creativity and an artistry that has established Journe as the Godfather of modern watchmaking, ranked in the minds of some, ahead of luminaries such as Kari Voutilainen, Roger Smith, and Laurent Ferrier.
Wherever you place him and his contribution to horology, he’d be among the top few names we’d expect to be reading about in two centuries’ time. Strange as it may be to countenance the fact, Journe is perhaps as important to our industry now as Breguet was in his day. Therefore, there could be no other brand to position atop the tree than the peerless F. P. Journe.
