Tonight’s Most Stylish Met Gala Attendees Sent Us Their Best Watch Shots

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Typically, Met Gala watch coverage looks pretty familiar. There’s a far-away image taken by a photographer that we all end up squinting at in an attempt to identify the watch. And those are the good ones. Sometimes the watch is totally inscrutable or concealed under a suit or tuxedo sleeve. So, even though the Met is usually dedicated to the most outrageous outfits of the year, we are giving the watches some extra love. We pulled together the biggest list of Met Gala wrist shots from this year’s most stylish and Karl Lagerfeld-inspired attendees. 

Davidson and the brand-brand-new Ingenieur. This watch, originally designed by the legendary designer Gérald Genta, just relaunched at Watches & Wonders in late March. Davidson has great taste: the teal-blue dial is my personal favorite. 

Brosnan wore his beloved and totally elegant Blancpain to the Gala. Brosnan’s wife Keely bought him the watch, he tells us. She inscribed it with the phrase, “Love flies on time’s wings.” 

Roger Federer says the watch is the final detail that brings his outfits together. The bow on his Met Gala tux is the brand-new Perpetual 1908. You can read more about Federer’s watch here. 

It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that Rami Malek was born wearing a Tank. He looks fantastic in them, especially this black-dial yellow-gold version that makes a delightful contrast with his white ensemble.

Among celebrities, Pusha T is one of the biggest and most knowledgeable Rolex fans. So it’s no surprise to see him in this icy, gorgeous Day-Date. It’s the perfect day to wear the first watch to write out the days of the week: it’s the First Monday in May. 

During his fitting, Beckham told GQ’s Eileen Cartter he’d wear “whatever [watch] my wife likes.” Apparently the black-on-black-on-black Santos was the winner. It makes a dynamite combo with the rest of Beckham’s all-black Met Gala outfit. 

“Being from Rome, I personally have an emotional attachment to the brand as I grew up with all the men in my family wearing Bulgari,” Keoghan’s stylist Ilaria Urbinati says. “I loved the black matte to ground his look and bring out the depth of the plaid.”

I know this isn’t the point of watches at the Met Gala—or really watches in general anymore—but this Octo Roma tells the time in such a cool way. The hours are displayed through a 24-hour disc at 12 o’clock and the minutes run along an arc between 3 and 9 o’clock. The disc at the center rotates so that the two rose gold hands indicate the minute. All this action happens around a tourbillon at the center of the dial. It doesn’t hurt that this is a gorgeous 18-carat rose-gold watch that helps with plaid depth, either. 

Olympic skier Gu gave us two watches for this Met Gala. She’s the only one wearing I’ve seen who brought out a pocket watch—an extremely badass move. The dress she wore is from designer Robert Wun’s spring/summer ‘23 show and the model for the piece carried a wine glass down the runway. Gu traded out the glass for a pocket watch. On her wrist is the Portofino with a perfectly matching pink strap. 

Few watches are more elegant than Wade’s Patrimony. Fewer pajamas are more elegant than his checkered and initialed ones. Read our whole getting ready with Wade here. 

This might be less of a wristshot and more of a kickass photo of Elba, but we couldn’t leave out his watch. Elba’s Gucci piece is a showstopper: a diamond-set gold case and a dial with a tourbillon on it and MOVING bees. 

Jonas wore the all-time classic Royal Oak to the Met Gala. It’s very cool to see steel sport watches like Jonas’s taking over the Met Gala, especially when it pairs this well with the rest of his jewelry.  

Quan is rocking his Speedy Agnelli style. The late legendary style icon Gianna Agnelli wore his watches over the shirt like this because, as rumor has it, he had some sort of allergy to metals or because his cuffs wore too tight to his wrists. Quan is rocking it this way because it looks killer. 
“I wasn’t really a watch guy [before the last year],” Quan told GQ’s Yang Yi-Goh. “My style before was really minimal—black T-shirt, jeans, no jewelry, no watch. [Getting into them] has been fun, but this one is the most fun I think.”

“I wore my steel Datejust with black dial and jubilee bracelet,” Welch says. “The watch is about the same age as me. I figured the black dial would go great with my custom black Saint Laurent D.B. tux, and I knew the steel would hit with all my Chrome Hearts jewelry.”