The brand’s creations are guided by an innate understanding and sensitivity to place, personality, and occasion
EXPERIENCE, as Tissot demonstrates, is something that cannot be rushed. It takes time to acquire horological know-how, hone expertise, and refine creative philosophies. For the 173-year-old watchmaking house, experience is also expressed in its understanding of client demands: what its customers desire – or not – as tastes and trends evolve.
Tissot occupies a sweet spot in an increasingly crowded field of affordable luxury watch brands. The name carries historical legacy, lineage and, along with these, well-regarded spirit and gravitas. Yet, the brand retails watches at competitive prices that make them attractive propositions for both first-watch buyers and seasoned enthusiasts.
Our top three favourite Tissot watches for the year encapsulate these exact qualities – offering variety to accommodate different occasions and styles, sweetened with value-for-money price tags.
Gentleman 38 mm
The three-hand men’s dress watch is one of the hardest things to get right. Tough questions are asked of both the watchmaker and owner. How much, or little, attention should such a watch command? Can it be classic yet unique all at once? Where else can one wear it, outside work environs?
Tissot’s Gentleman collection goes a long way to address the above conundrums. Building on the success of its 40 mm models, the collection welcomes new 38 mm versions into the fold in 2026. The reduced case dimension, while it appears slight, is more noticeable on the wrist – pleasingly proportionate especially for men with slim and mid-sized forearms.
The new case size, in turn, informs the rest of the watch. The details seem more pronounced: contrast finishing on the case and three-link bracelet, smooth tapered lugs, faceted sword-shaped hands and hour markers, sunray finish on the dial that catches the light as you move. It is as if the watch’s classic and austere style has been distilled and presented in greater concentration.
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The Gentleman 38 mm’s refined appearance, however, is backed up by serious mechanical might. The watch is driven by the Powermatic 80 automatic movement, which stores up to 80 hours of power reserve, and is equipped with a Nivachron balance spring that boasts enhanced resistance to magnetic fields, shocks, and temperature variations for better timekeeping precision.
Desir Moonphase
Watchmaking has long taken inspiration from the cosmos, but few features carry the same romance as the moonphase. Tissot’s Desir Moonphase embraces the poetic charms of the celestial orb wholeheartedly, anchored by a display that tracks its waxing and waning over 29.5 days, across six distinct interpretations.
Regardless of the model, the watches are anchored by a moon-phase display at five o’clock. Two versions articulate the design with greater boldness, one featuring a deep, mineral-flecked blue dial with a crescent moon set with diamonds, and the other set with Roman numerals for a more classical read. The rest of the range comprises four other executions that soften the look, housing dials in silver, golden beige, red, and a bi-colour finish, paired with a white mother-of-pearl moon-phase display.
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The slender, quartz-driven watches come in 30 mm stainless-steel cases with matching bracelets, complemented by ceramic cabochons on the winding crowns, and are water-resistant to 50 m. While unequivocally feminine and elegant, the Desir Moonphase is a watch built for daily wear – without losing its sense of occasion.
Tissot Pinarello Special Edition
Sport is an indelible part of Tissot’s identity. The brand keeps time on the hardwood as Official Timekeeper of the NBA, on the ice at the IIHF World Championships, and on the tarmac with MotoGP. Its latest partnership extends into the realm of competitive cycling, this time pairing with Pinarello, the Treviso bicycle maker behind 15 Tour de France victories and 30 Grand Tour wins.
The collaboration is manifested throughout the Tissot Pinarello Special Edition. The 42 mm case is made of forged carbon, the same material that Pinarello uses to build its frames. More pertinently, forged carbon is favoured for the same reasons: robustness without added weight.
An asymmetric case shape and a crown set at 10 o’clock reference the marque’s forkflap design, while an engraved Pinarello signature reiterates the partnership. Meanwhile, the grey dial takes its texture from asphalt, and the central seconds hand is shaped in Pinarello’s “P” logo and finished in the brand’s signature Borealis hue.
Like the Gentleman 38 mm, the COSC-certified Powermatic 80 drives the watch, boasting the same deep well of power reserve and shock- and magnetic-resistant attributes. Sweetening the deal, the watch is housed in a special collector’s box, and comes with two interchangeable straps: a sporty strap in technical fabric, and a hand-finished Italian leather strap, which can be easily swapped in seconds, thanks to Tissot’s quick release bracelet system.