WatchTime India’s ‘Watches for Women’ 2026 issue is here…

There is something wonderfully revealing about the way a woman chooses a watch. Our own WatchTime Team, 3/4ths women, have very different approaches. Sr. Correspondent Somya Rauthan loves big dials, the 40 mm Orient Bambino is on her list at the moment, and the Blancpain Fifty Fathoms is a grail. Marketing Head Mohita Sharma today has a neat little collection of Tank-style and rectangular watches, including the Longines DolceVita and a 1920s Omega. I tend to err on the side of case shapes and bracelets with a cushion-shaped Dennison; an ellipse Omega De Ville, and a Tissot PRX.

For a long time, the luxury-watch industry seemed to believe that the answer to women’s watches was rather straightforward: Make the case smaller (usually a shrunken version of a popular men’s watch), add a few more diamonds, and call it a women’s timepiece. The assumption was that it was a piece of jewellery that happened to tell time. But look a little closer at the women wearing watches today, and that old picture begins to change. Today, women could well be wearing a 36 mm steel sports watch with a mechanical movement, or may be drawn to a vintage piece because of the story behind it. Or opt for a watch originally designed for men. She may know exactly what calibre sits beneath the dial, and she may simply love the way a particular watch looks on her wrist.

The 2024 Deloitte and Watch Femme Spotlight on the Female Market study, which surveyed 6,000 consumers across 11 markets including India, found that 66 per cent women said they wanted to buy watches for themselves. More significantly, 40 per cent of women surveyed said they were prepared to spend between US $501 and US $5,000 on a watch, up from 30 per cent in 2023. Chrono24, the world’s largest specialist online marketplace for luxury watches, in its 2024 report, also captured a shift—its analysis of women’s purchases found that 32 per cent of watches bought by female customers were 40 mm or larger, a 25 per cent increase in the share of women choosing these larger sizes over five years.

In the Indian context, our market is changing rapidly, with younger consumers beyond the traditional luxury centres beginning to participate more actively in purchasing high-end watches, and that has to include women even if it is a small(er) percentage. What is undeniable is that in India, the scope for women and luxury watchmaking is huge, but still needs to be harnessed. However, steps are underway in this direction—in our story ‘Power of She’ (P. 34), we track how more and more Indian women are becoming brand friends and ambassadors of international watch brands. Our cover watch, the Cartier Baignoire Clous de Paris, and the Frederique Constant Classics Manchette, are leading a design-oriented approach to women’s watches, and you can read about them on P. 38, and P. 50, respectively. We chronicle the women who are at the forefront of luxury watchmaking today (‘Top of Their Game, P. 64), and our comprehensive report highlights all the best watches we saw for women this year (P. 24). Plus, our ‘Design Special’ stories also highlight the innovation happening on this front of watchmaking.