Apart from crazy complications and design-heavy timepieces, it's the simple guichet-style jumping hours that are catching our eye lately. Gathering admiration from collectors and enthusiasts alike, ‘Guichet’, or ‘ticket window or booth’ in French, is a style of watchmaking characterised by a small window on the dial, the absence of hands and instead a digital display, with the hour and / or minute indicated by a jumping number. 

The guichet style has existed since 1656, when the Campani brothers, renowned clockmakers and skilled opticians, created the first wandering hour clock for Pope Alexander VII. It was a mechanical clock featuring a small ‘guichet’ or window that revealed the hours. Marking the return of this style this year was a timepiece from Louis Vuitton, following which we spotted it at Cartier, Bremont, Jaeger-LeCoultre, and DeBethune. Here are the top five guichet watches from these brands - 

Among the slew of watches released by Cartier at Watches and Wonders this year was the latest Tank à Guichet in the Cartier Privé line. There are two 37.6mm X 24.8mm X 6mm variations available -  the first model remains faithful to the original 1928 design created by the brand, showcasing an hour aperture at 12 o’clock and a minute aperture at 6 o’clock, offered in yellow gold or rose gold. The other variant is a 200-piece limited-edition in platinum, featuring asymmetrically positioned apertures, a nod to the avant-garde spirit of the 1930s.

All versions are elegantly designed and are refined dress watches. To read an in-depth story about the watch, click here. 

At this year’s LVMH Watch Week, Louis Vuitton also brought forth its guichet-style watch with the release of two new Tambour Convergence watches. Tambour, which means a small drum, is an iconic design for the brand. The line now moves ahead with the jumping hour and minutes display, visible through contemporary windows on the minimal dial. There are two iterations, one in 18K pink gold 9 (Ref. W9PG11) and the other, a bejewelled version, made in platinum (Ref. W9PT11), both paying tribute to Maison’s montres à guichet from the past era. 

The 37mm case is available in pink gold and a dazzling platinum version set with 795 diamonds. The watches are artisanal and, again, they are excellent dress watches. Read more about the watches here. 

Just like Cartier executed guichet-style with its iconic Tank watches, Bremont, for the first time, has also expanded its classic field watch Terra Nova line with two exclusive Jumping Hour models. The first version is a 38mm cupro-aluminium bronze model, limited to 100 pieces, whose case develops a characteristic patina over time, lending each piece its own individual look. The watch features a linear display for hours, minutes, and seconds. The other version has a 40.5mm polished 904L stainless steel case with a jet black dial. However, this variant is incorporated with the adjacent hour and minute window, and a seconds hand. 

The bronze model looks elegant, while the steel model is more sturdy. Read more about these timepieces here. 

Jaeger-LeCoultre’s Reverso Tribute Nonantieme 'Enamel' is unlike other guichet-style watches - want to go as far ahead as to call it a poetic timepiece. It is crafted in 18K pink gold and limited to just 90 pieces. Being a Reverso, the watch features two faces - on the guichet side, the watch unveils two overlapping circular apertures arranged in a figure-eight, surrounded by intricate gadroons that echo the case's architectural lines. The round window shows the jumping hour, while the curved window indicates minutes, partially concealed by a three-quarter plate lacquered in a rich blue. 

Tiny pink gold stars have been delicately transferred onto the surface, creating a night sky that serves as a backdrop to a polished sun and moon, indicating day and night. The surrounding case is transformed into a celestial landscape, with multiple layers of deep blue enamel sprinkled with stars and latitude and longitude lines laser-engraved to reveal the underlying pink gold. The dial side features a grey sunray-brushed dial, featuring a sophisticated Grande Date display at 12 o'clock framed in pink gold and a moonphase nestled within the small seconds counter. 

Urwerk’s UR-101 T-Rex is also a guichet-style watch, inspired by the brand’s original UR-101 and 102 models, released in Baselworld in 1997, the same year the brand was founded. For the latest watch, the brand has now resurrected the UR-101 model, but it is a bold and more expressive re-interpretation of it. It’s called T-Rex as the guilloché texture is interpreted as the scales of the angry dinosaur. Like all the Urwerk watches, this too has a crown at 12 o’clock. The time telling is done by the curved window featuring minutes and a separate window for hours.