Best men's watches: the show-off timepieces designed to take your breath away

By Rebecca Doulton

Anything that a watch does beyond the standard function of telling the time is known as a complication. From minute repeaters with automata to sidereal time indicators, brands aim for the wow factor and pile complication upon complication into their movements. I call these the show-off pieces - men's watches that aim to knock the socks off even the most hardened horophiles.

Montblanc watches put on an amazing show this year with its Metamorphosis II, a two-faced timepiece equipped with sliding doors and elevators. In the classic position, the watch displays the hours, minutes and date. If you push the slide on the case, however, the two sliding doors are opened, revealing a completely different dial with chronograph functions. What's even more amazing is the way the counter to measure the elapsed minutes of the chronograph rises gradually from the depths of the watch. Needless to say, this is an extremely complex symphony to play and took four years of hard work to juggle an orchestra of 746 different components.

Next up is Cartier's Rotonde de Cartier Grande Complication Skeleton watch. Armed with a perpetual calendar, a minute repeater, a flying tourbillon and an automatic skeletonised movement, this is the most complex of all Cartier watches to date. Luckily, everything is on view, thanks to the openwork white gold dial and skeletonised calibre 9406 MC. But this is not all: the movement that powers the three complications has been whittled down to a remarkable thinness of just 5.49mm.

Given the extreme complexity of Greubel Forsey watches, I am only too happy to see them revisited in new materials, giving me another chance to decipher their workings. Designed for the world traveller who probably owns his own jet, the GMT timepiece has been re-edited this year in a lightweight titanium case with an ADLC black coating for additional hardness. The GMT watch represents world time with a rotating 3D globe that completes a rotation every 24 hours - illuminated by a lateral window on the case - and a second time zone indication in a disc at 10 o'clock. Keeping everything in perfect synchronisation is the house speciality, a 25º inclined tourbillon that rotates every 24 seconds. If you're still with me, on the reverse is a world time disc with the names of 24 cities. My sincere hope is that, if you are one of the fortunate 22 individuals who come to own this watch, you take the instruction manual along on your next flight.

Greubel Forsey GMT watch features the name of 24 cities on a world time disc on the caseback, which protects the incredibly complex movement. This GMT model is limited to 22 watches.
Greubel Forsey GMT is housed in a lightweight titanium case with a black ADLC coating. The 3D globe completes a rotation every 24 hours and gets extra light from the lateral window on the case. The inclined 24-second tourbillon is a house speciality.
Cartier Rotonde de Cartier Grande Complication Skeleton watch runs on calibre 9406 MC. Just 5.49mm thick, the movement gets its energy from a platinum micro-rotor decorated with guilloché.
Cartier Rotonde de Cartier Grande Complication is presented in a 45mm platinum case and is a limited edition of 50 watches. Thanks to its openwork dial and skeletonised movement, all the action of the complications, including the hammers of the minute repeater, can be observed.
Cartier Rotonde de Cartier Grande Complication compresses three complications - perpetual calendar, minute repeater and flying tourbillon - into an ultra-thin skeletonised movement and openwork dial.
Montblanc Metamorphosis II watch appears with the classical hour, retrograde minute and date dial, and is presented in a 45mm rose gold case. If you look closely at the hours and seconds discs, you will notice a slight depression on the dial.
By activating the slider on the gold case, the Montblanc Metamorphosis II transforms into a chronograph in five seconds. The two discs - hour and minutes - slide open to reveal a darker dial for the hours and a minutes counter for elapsed time, which emerges magically from the depths of the watch.
Montblanc Metamorphosis II watch is a master of transformation allowing you to view the conventional hour, minute, seconds and date on one dial, and chronograph functions on the dial hidden below.
A close-up of the chronograph hour disc on the Montblanc Metamorphosis II watch reveals a black Clous de Paris guilloché decoration contrasting to the silvered spiral guilloché finish on the central part of the dial. The watch is a limited edition of 18 pieces and comes in a 52mm rose gold case.
Greubel Forsey GMT watch with a rotating globe to display universal time, showing the time zones in 24 cities, day and night indicator, power reserve gauge, hour and minute display, summer time indicator and small seconds counter.