If last year’s Watches and Wonders felt like it was playing against a backdrop of geopolitical chaos (with Trump's tariff bombshell sending a shiver through the Swiss watch industry), the 2026 edition arrives with its own complicated backdrop. The downturn that has been gnawing at Swiss watchmakers for the past two years hasn't fully lifted, and the industry is still finding its footing in a world where Chinese appetite remains muted and a booming secondary market is increasingly the first port of call for buyers discouraged by ever-rising retail prices. And yet Geneva looks set to deliver. The 2026 show is shaping up to be the largest watchmaking gathering ever organized in the city, with a significant storyline being the return of Audemars Piguet, absent from the show since 2019. But above all, 2026 is a year of anniversaries. Patek Philippe is marking the 50th birthday of the Nautilus. Tudor is celebrating its centenary. Most anticipated is the 100th year of Rolex’s Oyster case, which gave rise to the world’s first mass-market waterproof wristwatch in 1926. The Rolex Day-Date also turns 70 this year, introduced in 1956 as the first watch to display both the day and date spelled in full, affording the world's largest luxury watch brand two landmark occasions to shout about. As ever, the timepieces themselves cut through the noise. Here are our top picks from the show so far, and we’ll be updating this throughout the week as we find more WIRED watches. Updated April 14: We've added new watches from Tudor, Rolex, and Patek Philippe. The Pilot's Venturer Vertical Drive is IWC’s first watch designed from the ground up for human spaceflight. This isn’t a modified terrestrial pilot's watch with a few space miles on it; it’s a purpose-built instrument engineered in partnership with Vast, the company behind Haven-1, scheduled to be the world's first commercial space station. The problem it solves is practical. Astronauts can't easily operate a crown while wearing Ex