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Watches & Wonders Geneva 2026: Our Predictions From Tudor
The countdown has officially begun for the horology world’s biggest event of the year.
Watches & Wonders Geneva runs from the 14th to the 20th April, with the final two days seeing it open its doors to the general public.
2026 is set to be the event’s largest gathering yet, with some 65 exhibitors—from A. Lange & Söhne to Zenith—taking part. And key amongst the real heavyweights are two of the industry’s best known names.
Rolex will always be the biggest draw, but their sister company, Tudor, is likely to steal a more sizeable slice of the spotlight this year than normal as it celebrates its 100th anniversary.
That’s right, the brand Hans Wilsdorf set up in the 1920s to offer his customers a more cost effective option is clocking up its centenary.
So, the expectations this year are higher than ever. The question is, what will Tudor bring to the party? Let’s have a guess.
An Expansion of the 1926 Collection
There is a comparison to be made between the price of a brand’s watches and the amount of freedom they seem to have for experimentation. Essentially, the more expensive a piece, the more conservative the designers tend to be with it.
If you look at Rolex’s Oyster Perpetual range, the manufacture’s entry level offering, it is the one the company generally outfits with the wildest and most eccentric dials.
Stands to reason then that Tudor, set up solely to be Rolex’s less expensive alternative, should allow for far more creative expression across the board.
The most obvious recipient for a bit of out of the box thinking this year would be the 1926 series. Named after the year Tudor was founded, it is, on the whole, a somewhat restrained collection. Available in four sizes (28mm, 36mm, 39mm and 41mm) the range hovers at the more conventional end of the spectrum; dials have traditionally come in black, white and silver.
However, in 2025, Tudor loosened up a bit with the introduction not only of their first moonphase to date, but also with dials for said watches in a gorgeous sunburst champagne or blue.
With this being such an important year, and with it reflected in the name of the collection, it isn’t the biggest leap to imagine Tudor going all out with the 1926 range. I think we can expect a raft of new and vibrant dials at the very least, and maybe even a new complication along the lines of a day-date or GMT.
The Return of the Big Block?
2026 isn’t just the anniversary of Tudor itself. It also marks the 50th birthday of one of their classics, 1976’s ‘Big Block’, the brand’s first automatic chronograph.
The third generation of Tudor racing watches, it was an important reference in its own right, and even more so when you consider it predated the self-winding Rolex Daytona by more than a decade.
Perhaps the biggest rumor surrounding Tudor’s releases this year concerns an all-new interpretation of the Big Block (officially titled the Oysterdate Chronograph) with an in-house, Kenissi-manufactured movement.
Tudor actually released a prototype of that very model at ONLY Watch 2023 in the shape of an 18k yellow gold, black dialed version, looking not unlike the JPS Daytonas from the ‘80s. Inside was the home-grown MT59XX, a column wheel-controlled, silicon hairspring-equipped, 70-hour power reserved caliber also built by the brand’s ebauche arm, Kenissi.
While the watch never made it into production, it did represent the first time Tudor had come up with an in-house chronograph, with previous models (the Black Bay Chrono and Pelagos FXD) running on the Breitling B01, renamed as the MT5813.
It would be a huge move for Tudor, completing the set for them caliber-wise, and could legitimately be a real winner for the company; particularly if the movement gained METAS certification. Chances are it would be rolled out to the manufacture’s other chronos as well. We will have to wait and see.
The Black Bay 58 Goes METAS
It’s no exaggeration to say that the Black Bay series has put Tudor firmly on the map and brought them out of Rolex’s shadow almost single-handedly.
There are now 9 separate Black Bay collections in the line-up, encompassing everything from the simplest time-only dress watches, through a whole slew of dive models at various sizes, Explorer-type field watches, chronographs and dual time zone pieces.
But arguably the most wearable and versatile of them all is the Black Bay 58. An absolutely flawless throwback to the divers of the 1950s, everything about the 58s has seemingly been designed to keep vintage fans happy.
Case size comes in at that perfect 39mm sweet spot. Dial furniture is the iconic dots and batons with the inverted 12 o’clock triangle. The crystals—domed, the bracelets—riveted, the crowns—unguarded.
All models in the range are powered by in-house manufacture movements, but Tudor has begun taking steps to upgrade the calibers still further. In 2024, the Black Bay 58 GMT became the first in the series to be given a METAS-certified engine, the MT5450-U. Then, last year, the brand released a new time-only example with a matte burgundy bezel and bright red sunburst dial—a direct homage to a Tudor Submariner 79190 from the 1990s (which, again, didn’t get a production run) with a METAS movement; the MT5400-U.
One of the safest bets circulating pre-W&W this year is that some if not all the remaining BB58 colorways, which are still available at the moment running alongside the next gen models, will be outfitted with the new movements.
Whether or not they will change anything else to commemorate the advancement, such as a new set of dials, or if they will even keep both generations in the catalog concurrently, is unclear.
More METAS
On that note, Tudor leans heavily into its Master Chronometer certification, as well they should. Gaining METAS endorsement calls for a brutal assessment of any watch, requiring accuracy of between 0/+5 seconds a day, magnetic resistance up to 15,000 gauss, water resistance 25% greater than stated and a host of other punishing requirements. On paper, it is actually more demanding than Rolex’s Superlative Chronometer Certification and, as it is done by an independent body, is certainly more transparent.
Much of the Tudor portfolio already runs on METAS movements (Black Bay 66, Pelagos Ultra, most of the 41mm Black Bay models as well as the new burgundy BB58 and BB58 GMT we already mentioned).
However, that still leaves plenty outside the benchmark. The Ranger, Black Bay Pro, the Chronos and 54 series’, as well as the 1926 collection, don’t currently run on Master Chronometer engines. So there is plenty of scope for Tudor to really set out its intentions and upgrade the rest, or at least plenty, of its other models.
In that way, they really will shrug off the ‘poor man’s Rolex’ depiction.
Featured Photo: Mixed art by Oriol Mendivil for BKT Archive.
