Tim Mosso talks about the end of the green dial watch fad of the early 2020s. From the 2020 model year Rolex Oyster Perpetual collection to elite Patek Philippe complicated watches, green dials have been everywhere for the last five years. But 2025 is different, and there's a changing of the guard in the world or watch design. The future belongs to "glassbox" sapphire crystals as watch collectors search for the latest trend.

Giant crystals on watches aren't new - huge Plexiglas crystals on 1950s and 1960s divers were functionally thick. And the year 2000's Corum Bubble mimicked - in jest - the huge plexi of the Rolex Deepsea Special that bottomed on the Challenger Deep. But the Corum was a goofy riff on history, not a functional choice of any kind -- and it was too far ahead of its time. By 2016, the term "glassbox" or "glass box" had emerged as a marker for stylishly over-cambered sapphire crystals with bubble-like distortion.

The 2023 TAG Heuer Carrera 60th Anniversary seems to have been the moment our current glassbox crystal era began in earnest. TAG Heuer went a step further by contouring the dial to match the curvature of the crystal. The next year, Jaeger-LeCoultre (Duometre) and IWC (Portuguese) dramatically turned to the glassbox with redesigned versions of long-running watch models. Girard Perregaux, Czapek, and even Raymond Weil followed suit.

Easily the most consequential was the IWC Portugieser Eternal Calendar. Although theoretically a mechanical upgrade on the prior Portugieser Perpetual Calendar, the most striking feature of the Eternal Calendar is the huge vaulted sapphire bubble over a dial that is itself crafted of contoured sapphire. More than just another cambered crystal, the IWC demonstrated how a glassbox sapphire could begin to dictate the design of an entire watch.

With a glassbox, a sapphire dial of calendar displays, and a vaulted white dial sloped to match, the Portugieser Eternal Calendar may be on the vanguard of a new trend in watch design. Having taken the Aiguille d'Or at the 2024 GPHG, this IWC is guaranteed to spawn legions of imitators that seek to capitalize more on the unique aesthetic of this perpetual calendar than its actual engineering. Green dials are dead, and this is next.

Discover Tim Mosso's thoughts on the newest trend in watches on Watches Tonight!

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