Met Gala 2026: all the watches that stole the show at fashion’s biggest night out

Dwayne Johnson has spent 20 years making himself the most reliable box office draw in Hollywood, from the Fast & Furious franchise to Jumanji to Black Adam, and his personal brand is built on scale, discipline, and an almost cartoonish level of commitment to everything he does. The Jacob & Co Billionaire III fits that profile exactly. The case and bracelet are set entirely in baguette-cut diamonds, thousands of them, covering every surface. The movement underneath is skeletonised, visible through the dial. There is no subtlety here and none is intended. Jacob & Co makes watches that are explicitly about excess and the Billionaire III is the most extreme version of that. On someone of Johnson’s size and presence, it looked proportionate.

Read more: Watches and Wonders 2026: a comprehensive list of all the new Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso timepieces featuring Japanese art and enamelling

Rami Malek won an Oscar playing Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody and has built a reputation for choices, in roles, in style, in general, that are considered and slightly left of centre. The platinum Cartier Crash from 1992 is exactly that kind of choice. The Crash has one of the best origin stories in watchmaking. The original 1967 model was reportedly shaped from a Baignoire destroyed in a car accident, the heat warping the case into an asymmetric, almost melted form that Cartier liked enough to put into production. The platinum version is rarer than the standard yellow gold. A 1992 example is vintage, which adds another layer. This is not a watch you stumble across. You have to know it exists, know its history, and decide it’s worth wearing to one of the most photographed events of the year. Malek did all three.

Serena Williams is arguably the greatest tennis player of all time, with 23 Grand Slam singles titles, and has in retirement built a serious venture capital portfolio through Serena Ventures. She is someone who operates at the absolute top of multiple fields simultaneously. The Royal Oak Perpetual Calendar belongs in that conversation. The Royal Oak was designed by Gérald Genta in 1972, a luxury sports watch in steel with an octagonal bezel and exposed screws, radical for its time and now one of the most influential watch designs of the 20th century. The Perpetual Calendar version adds a complication that tracks the date, day, month, moon phase, and leap year cycle automatically, never needing manual correction until 2100. 

Paul Anthony Kelly is a model and creative known for a precise, considered approach to style. The Vacheron Constantin Overseas Tourbillon is a details watch. The Overseas is Vacheron Constantin’s sports watch, with an integrated bracelet, cushion-shaped case, and built for travel but the Tourbillon version adds a flying tourbillon, a rotating cage that counteracts the effect of gravity on the movement and one of the most technically demanding complications in watchmaking. The finishing on this piece, the chamfering of the bridges, the quality of the dial, is exceptional. It is not a watch that announces itself. For someone with Kelly’s eye, that is likely the point.

Westbrook, one of NBA’s all-time triple-double leaders, has been as well known for his fashion choices as his game for years. He has sat front row at fashion weeks, collaborated with designers, and worn things on the court that no one else would attempt. The Rolex Daytona Rainbow is the right watch for that profile. The Daytona is Rolex’s chronograph, introduced in 1963 and named after the Daytona International Speedway. The Rainbow version has a bezel set entirely in baguette-cut sapphires graduating through a spectrum of colour. In yellow gold with a black dial the contrast is extreme. These are among the most coveted references in the current Rolex catalogue, extremely difficult to obtain at retail, and trading significantly above list price on the secondary market. Westbrook has always dressed like someone who doesn’t need anyone's approval, and we think, this watch agrees.

See also: Opinion: is this Rolex’s most intelligent watch launched at Watches and Wonders in Geneva this year?

Finn Wolfhard broke through as Mike Wheeler in Stranger Things and has since moved into music with his band the Aubreys and taken on more varied film roles, building a career that’s more interesting than his start might have suggested. The Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso Tribute Monoface in white gold is a similar kind of choice: not the obvious one, but the right one. The Reverso was designed in 1931 so polo players could flip the case over and protect the dial during a match. It became one of watchmaking's most enduring designs. The Tribute Monoface stays close to the original proportions. The “Or Deco Cocktail” edition applies art deco-influenced decoration to the case and dial. In white gold it is precise and understated. For someone in their mid-twenties, wearing a 1931 design to a costume gala is a confident call.

Best known for playing George Russell in The Gilded Age, HBO’s drama about New York’s old money families in the 1880s, Spector has spent two seasons making authority look effortless. The IWC Portugieser Perpetual Calendar 44 belongs to exactly that register. The Portugieser was originally developed in the 1930s for Portuguese clients who wanted a pocket watch movement inside a wristwatch case, which is why it runs large. The 44mm case gives it a strong, confident presence on the wrist. The Perpetual Calendar complication displays the date, day, month and moonphase and accounts for the different lengths of each month automatically. It is an elegant, serious watch with no interest in being fashionable. After two seasons playing one of The Gilded Age's most composed characters, Spector clearly knows how to wear that.

Irina Shayk arrived in a strikingly sheer, jewellery-heavy look built around a “necklace bra” of diamond-encrusted pieces, with the Cartier Santos at the literal centre, holding the construction together. Multiple vintage watches were worn as armbands and chokers across her wrists and neck. It was one of the most literal interpretations of watch-as-jewellery the carpet has ever seen. The Santos is historically significant. It is widely considered the first purpose-built wristwatch, commissioned by Louis Cartier in 1904 for the Brazilian aviator Alberto Santos-Dumont, who needed to check the time during flight without letting go of the controls. The square case, visible screws, and integrated bracelet all come from that original design. 

Nicole Kidman came to the 2026 gala as co-chair, which meant her look was one of the most closely watched of the entire evening. She wore Chanel from head to toe, the dress, the earrings, the jewellery, and chose the Omega Constellation Manhattan from 1982 to sit alongside it. The Manhattan is defined by its claws, four pointed lugs gripping the bezel, a bold design that became one of Omega’s most recognisable references of the 1980s. A vintage example from the year of its introduction has a specificity to it that a newer piece wouldn’t. Pairing a 40-year-old watch with a full Chanel look as co-chair of the Met Gala is a considered statement. Kidman has been one of cinema's most consistent presences for four decades, from Moulin Rouge to Eyes Wide Shut to Being the Ricardos, and she dressed the part.

The same reference as Kidman’s, in the larger Grand version, with the two-tone steel and yellow gold combination that was everywhere in the 1980s and has come back around as genuinely desirable again. Vintage two-tone is no longer a compromise—it is a specific aesthetic choice. Domingo wore it well.

The Cloche, French for bell, has a distinctive shape: the crown is positioned at 6 o’clock, which pulls the case into a long, narrow, drop-like form. It was first made in the 1920s and has been reissued periodically. It is not one of Cartier’s most famous references, which makes it a more interesting choice than the Tank or the Santos. In yellow gold it is warm and jewellery-forward.

Hublot launched the Big Bang in 2005 with a design philosophy built around contrast—rubber straps on precious metal cases, industrial materials next to fine finishing. The Unico is its in-house column-wheel chronograph movement, which Hublot developed to prove it could make its own calibres. The High Jewellery version adds extensive gem-setting to a watch that was already loud. Evans committed to it.

Dwyane Wade won three NBA championships with the Miami Heat, was an eleven-time All-Star, and has in retirement become one of basketball’s most prominent voices on social issues and one of its most stylish former players. He has spoken openly about his love of fashion and jewellery and has collaborated with brands including Li-Ning and Budweiser. The Tiffany Eternity watch is firmly on the jewellery side of the watch-versus-jewellery spectrum. It is diamonds on the wrist that also happens to tell the time. Tiffany has been making watches since the 19th century but is not primarily thought of as a watch brand, and the Eternity doesn’t try to be. Wade wore it cleanly, as a punctuation mark rather than a statement, which sometimes takes more confidence than the statement itself.

British model Connor Storrie chose an interesting watch for his Met Gala appearance. The Constellation’s “Observatory” name refers to Omega’s history of submitting movements to observatory timing competitions, where they were independently tested for accuracy. It is a lineage the brand is proud of. The watch itself is elegant and unfussy. In a lineup that included the Grandmaster Chime and the Billionaire III, this reads as the restrained pick—someone who knows what they like and doesn’t need to prove anything.

The Premier is Breitling’s dress line, distinct from the more familiar Navitimer and Superocean. The original Premier was made in the 1940s and was aimed at a civilian, city-wearing customer rather than a pilot or diver. The modern revival keeps that spirit—cleaner, slimmer, more formal than most Breitling. The B01 is Breitling’s in-house chronograph movement, a column-wheel design with a 70-hour power reserve. At 42mm it wears well under a jacket cuff. A smart, unpretentious choice.

Thai-born member of Blackpink and now a global solo artist with tracks including Lalisa, Money, and Rockstar, has become one of the most influential figures in fashion in the world. Her watch choice at the Met Gala carried that weight. The Serpenti is one of Bulgari’s oldest and most recognisable designs—a snake wrapping around the wrist, with the watch face hidden in the head. The original dates to the 1940s and has been worn by Elizabeth Taylor, Ingrid Bergman, and Anna Magnani. The Spiga version takes its name from the Italian word for wheat stalk and uses that motif in the bracelet construction—interlocking gold links that move with the wrist. It is unmistakably Italian, unmistakably Bulgari, and sits at the intersection of watchmaking and high jewellery in a way that very few pieces manage. Lisa wearing it makes sense—it is a watch with a strong visual identity that holds its own next to a strong personal one.

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