High voltage: why the yellow gold watch is retaking the crown – from Ken’s 3 Tag Heuer Carreras in Barbie and TikTok’s ‘mob wife’ aesthetic, to Alec Baldwin and Tony Soprano’s iconic Rolexes

Whether we attribute it to the growing appetite for vintage timepieces, the TikTok favourite “mob wife” trend, Ken in the Barbie movie, or a satisfying revival of the excess of the 1980s, yellow gold watches are having a moment, again.

After the enduring reign of stainless steel sports watches (which, to be clear, aren’t going anywhere) something rather more glam, of the high voltage variety, has captured the zeitgeist.

Some of the buzziest watch launches of the year so far have been crafted in yellow gold. These include Bulgari’s revival of its molto chic Bulgari Bulgari watch at LVMH Watch Week in January, its design taking inspiration from a Roman coin. Breitling’s collaboration with British fashion designer Victoria Beckham included a gold Chronomat with a peppermint dial (a nod to Beckham’s own impressive watch collection and in a limited run of 100). Louis Vuitton recently unveiled a yellow gold version of its newly redefined Tambour watch, and Audemars Piguet just launched a new version of its Royal Oak Frosted Gold Selfwinding model crafted entirely from 18k yellow gold. Meanwhile, let’s not forget that Ken wore not one but three gold Tag Heuer Carreras in the Barbie movie.

In any case, there is undeniably something fantastically bombastic about a gold watch. Stand-out references include Tony Soprano’s gold Rolex in The Sopranos, any one of the “It” girls wearing the Cartier Panthère and – of course – Alec Baldwin as top salesman Blake in Glengarry Glen Ross, who famously says of his gold Rolex Day-Date: “You see this watch? You see this watch? … That watch cost more than your car. I made US$970,000 last year. How much did you make? You see, pal, that’s who I am. And you’re nothing.”