Timothée Chalamet Is the Indie Watch Community’s Unlikely New Poster Boy
All winter long, it’s been impossible for Timothée Chalamet to step out in public without sending the internet into ecstasies. First came the windbreaker mania set off by Chalamet’s Marty Supreme promo circuit and merch drop. Then there was his appearance in the music video of Liverpudlian rapper EsDeeKid, who was rumored to be Chalamet’s own alter ego. With awards season in full swing, the 30-year-old actor has started making the rounds, often arm-and-arm with girlfriend Kylie Jenner, dressed in one viral outfit after another.
The only predictable thing about the Chalamet effect is how unpredictable it all is. And lately amongst the ranks of fans and professionals dedicated to scrutinizing Chalamet from head to toe, this particular PR blitz has now also captured the attention of a new demographic: the watch fanatics.
It appears that Chalamet has gone fully off-script from his usual “friend of the brand” relationship with Cartier: Instead, the Oscar nominee has showed up to this season’s red carpet appearances sporting serious IYKYK horological hitters on his wrist. Starting last year, with his guerilla-marketing press tour for Marty Supreme, Chalamet stunned watch enthusiasts at the New York Film Festival in October, by debuting a Urban Jürgensen — a Swiss-Danish independent dating back to 1773, recently revived just last year.
Urban Jürgensen is the kind of name you’d call the watchmaker’s watch, per Arthur Touchot, co-founder and CEO of auction house Marteau & Co. “Collectors obsess over them because the craft is exceptional,” Touchot says. “They’re built by artisans using traditional methods, with hand-finished details that demand skill, hours of execution, and a process that simply can’t be rushed – so production is extremely limited.”
Cartier bolo tie watch this is not: “These aren’t watches you can just walk in and buy – they’re genuinely hard to get, and usually require time, trust, and relationships,” Touchot says. Collectors typically track where UJ pieces go and who gets them; until now, they’re mostly watching other collectors. That’s the whole point of independent watch-making: it’s a way into the more personal side of the market, where it can feel like you’re supporting artists rather than just wearing a product.
“That’s why seeing Timothée wearing watches only they are supposed to know about felt like such a moment,” Touchot says of the watch community’s reception of Chalamet’s recent wristwear. “It’s like someone famous just revealed a well-kept secret.”In the era of the red carpet as a brand pageant, where maisons rely on paid ambassadors (or rather, their limbs) to get people talking, Chalamet’s championing of independent watchmaking feels like a jolt of that elusive celebrity magic — real personal expression.
Per UJ CEO Alex Rosenfield, Chalamet first heard about the brand via mutual friends in Los Angeles. “His team reached out slightly before our relaunch in June to ask if Timothée could come over to see the watches,” Rosenfield says. “What we thought would be a 10-minute meeting lasted two hours.” In Rosenfield’s telling, the young actor was enthusiastic to learn about UJ’s history and to try on the watches.
By all accounts, Chalamet has personally contracted the independent watchmaking bug (an expensive malaise); he’s since been spotted sporting models hot off the watchmaker’s bench and each zhuzhed up with brightly-colored strap pairings, with a UJ-1 in Rose Gold at the LA premier of Marty Supreme, to multiple sightings of the UJ-2 in Platinum at the Golden Globes in January and most recently, the Oscar nominees luncheon just last week.
What’s impressive is that he’s also clearly doing his homework by donning not only alternative UJ models (from the brand’s previous ownership period), but other respected artisanal names such as Simon Brette, a Swiss-based watchmaker founded in 2021, which he sported on Jimmy Fallon; underdog independent Petermann Bédat at the AFI Awards luncheon; and a suspected Akrivia at the Critics Choice Awards too, another mutually independent atelier founded by respected watchmaker, Rexhep Rexhepi.
A few months earlier on Jimmy Fallon’s Tonight Show, amid Marty Supreme mania, the actor revealed an extremely collectible Chronomètre Artisans, a limited piece from Simon Brette, who is arguably one of the most exciting new voices in haute horology and whose pedigree and outlook led Brette to scoop up the Horological Revelation Prize at the 2023 Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Geneve awards (the Oscars of the watch world, if you will). Brette’s emphasis is craftsmanship first. Watch jargon decoded, that means every surface, including blink-and-you’ll-miss-them screws, are hand-polished, to the engine that powers the watch is produced in house (as opposed to outsourcing), all while nodding to traditional watchmaking tropes through a modern lens. It’s why he produces very few watches a year — and perhaps this will be the one that Chalamet takes to the Oscars himself.
It shouldn’t be a surprise that Chalamet is obsessed with these watches, or craftsmanship itself. You might say game recognizes game, à la Chalamet’s own commitment to his craft, whether it’s spending seven years training how to play table tennis for Josh Safdie’s hit, or the five years spent perfecting Bob Dylan’s vocal style for his leading man biopic from 2024. This is the guy, after all, who told the SAG Awards last year that he’s in pursuit of greatness. Turns out, that ethos extends down to his choice of watches, too.
In turn, the watch scene could be due for its own Chalamet Effect. Could the actor be a catalyst for a generational shift where watches are appreciated for their aesthetic merit, rather than the logo? It’s possible, per collector and Ladies Watch Specialists at Monaco Legend Group, Carlotta Parmegiani: “While almost everyone in the world knows Rolex or Patek Philippe, very few are familiar with [these] names. Important and influential figures, who are true trendsetters, are contributing significantly to the growth of the independent watchmaking market, which is still young but rapidly expanding. Seeing an independent on [Chalamet’s] wrist draws the attention of the younger generation, making them wonder: ‘What is he wearing?’”
For indie watchmaking at large, Chalamet’s star power could provide an invaluable boost, especially for makers who operate with little to no marketing budget. “Timothée hasn’t changed what these watches are — he’s changed who’s paying attention.” says Touchot. “He’s choosing smaller, highly niche watchmakers that you don’t wear for recognition, you wear because you actually care. And that is resonating with younger audiences, who make choices that are more intentional, and personal.”
And unlike perhaps the more formidable big brands, these indie watch brands sound ready to welcome those curious with open arms. “We care about traditional watch collectors but also about introducing them to people who often don't feel spoken to by the world of high watchmaking,” says Rosenfield. “There's a huge world of people who will love these watches and we want to open it up to them instead of gatekeeping.”
Amid all the Chalamet fanfare, this may be the cultural close-up independent watchmaking has been waiting for — bringing the art of the craft, just like this actor’s intentions, front and centre, and finally giving it the big screen moment it deserves.
