Timothée Chalamet’s Favorite Red-Carpet Watch Never Gets Old
Back in June 2025, members of the press, collectors, and industry insiders gathered in Los Angeles to celebrate the rebirth of a brand whose name—if we’re being frank—was known only to the nerdiest of watch nerds.
Born 250 years ago in Copenhagen, Danish watchmaker Urban Jürgensen was by all accounts a brilliant horologist. Having studied under Abraham-Louis Breguet and John Arnold, he set up his own business and published an important treatise on watchmaking by the age of 28. By the time of his death, he had supplied marine chronometers to the Royal Danish Navy and become the very first tradesman invited to join the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences.
Jürgensen’s eponymous marque continued, passed through successive generations of family members and enterprising outsiders, until being purchased by the Rosenfield family in 2021. Tapping Finnish master watchmaker Kari Voutilainen as co-CEO, the company relaunched with a trio of new models: The UJ-3 perpetual calendar with instantaneous moon phase; the UJ-2 three-hander with double-wheel natural escapement; and the UJ-1 250th anniversary watch, a modern interpretation of the Oval Pocket Watch produced by the late watchmaker Derek Pratt, a mentor of Voutilainen’s and a one-time steward of the brand.
With the help of Voutilainen and the blessings of some of the world’s most high-profile collectors, the Urban Jürgensen name is no longer relegated to the dusty workshops of obsessive watchmakers. Instead, it has joined the ranks of high-end indie brands like F.P. Journe and Daniel Roth, whose fans see watches as part of the sartorial zeitgeist on par with Huntsman & Sons suits and The Row trenchcoats. Case in point: The wrist of Timothée Chalamet. That one of the world’s biggest celebrities has chosen to wear Urban Jürgensen on repeat in recent months should tell you something about where “UJ” stands within the wider watch world, and how far it’s come in a very short span of time.
Appearing at the Oscars Nominees Luncheon at The Beverly Hilton this week, Chalamet once again strapped on the UJ-2, a watch he previously wore to the Marty Supreme NYC premier last October, and at the L.A. premier last December (where a wrist-off of sizable proportions took place). Measuring 39mm in platinum, it transposes 18th-and 19th-century horological tropes—the hand-guilloché, the double-wheel natural escapement pioneered by Breguet—into a modern form, adding swooping teardrop lugs and a pocket watch-influenced case. Though it may look like a simple dress watch—it displays just the time and a small power reserve indicator—its movement architecture and stunning finishing are indicative of the care that went into its design and production. (They also help explain the MSRP of 105,000 Swiss Francs—about $137,000.)
Much of the 2020s ’ most interesting watchmaking is coming from unexpected corners like these. A newly reconstituted 18th-century brand; a luggage-maker-turned fashion house; a tiny upstart founded by two collectors. As Chalamet’s wrist proves, the future looks bright for both the humble dress watch and the niche indie watch brand.
DeMarcus Lawrence’s Norqain Wild ONE
