For as long as watches have existed, time has always been read from a face—tick tock, two hands circling a numbered dial. But there are a few that are rewriting the rules of how we can perceive time. These unconventional designs don’t just break tradition for the sake of it, they force us to engage with timekeeping on a deeper level. Some demand patience. Most require interpretation. Others disappear completely, leaving only the ghost of a movement behind. Below, we explore the most compelling faceless watches that prove telling time doesn’t always require a dial.
On an empty slab of platinum, there is not a hint of the Guichet being interested in telling time, aside from two small apertures at 12 and 6 o’clock that silently display the hours and minutes. There is no guilloché pattern on the dial to catch the light, no luminous hands sweeping across a dial—there’s not even a discreet Cartier logo tucked away in a corner. The brutal, almost-bleak case feels as if time itself is a wild thing that’s been caught and caged—it’s sealed away, inevitable and untouchable. Even the winding crown that allows the wearer to adjust time is inconspicuously nestled between the case and the leather strap at 12 o’clock. This not only preserves perfect symmetry but prevents it from ever digging into the wrist, had it been positioned at the side.
It shouldn’t work. The Guichet breaks every rule of conventional watch design—and yet, it somehow feels eerily futuristic, almost steampunk-like. Would you believe me if I told you Duke Ellington used to rock a piece while coaxing melodies from his piano? Back in 1928, it measured 37.6mm tall and 24.8mm wide, and it still does in 2025. Knowing Cartier, it will probably measure the same in another hundred years.
The IWC Tribute to the Pallweber Edition “150 Years” reaches deep into the brand’s archive—specifically to an avant-garde pocket watch from 1885—and reimagines it as a mechanical wristwatch. Apart from a small seconds subdial at 12 o’clock, nothing about the Pallweber conforms to tradition, even nearly a century later. White feels like a never-ending expanse that sweeps across the dial, so vast that it spills into the tickers that display the hours and minutes. Both of which are spelt out in a curved, almost theatrical typeface which carry a charming sense of self-awareness and surrealism. Time? Oh, you mean these giant numbers?
Two rings—one thick, one thin—anchor the composition, visually tethering the hours to the seconds subdial. The glossy lacquer dial catches the light with a retro-futuristic sheen, almost like vintage diner china. But that playful thought vanishes as soon as it arrives. It’s 45mm rounded 18-carat 5N gold case imposes a rich, commanding presence that reminds you only 250 of these exist in the world.
At first glance, the Armoriale Minute Repeater is aloof, impenetrable—an enigma. It’ll have you questioning whether you’re looking at a case back instead of a dial. There are no hands, no indices. Only a mesmerising canvas of handcrafted guilloche that spirals in the language of the golden ratio, catching and refracting light like a prism.
But inside exists a mechanical orchestra of hammers striking cathedral gongs, transforming hours and minutes into resonant chimes. This is a watch that demands your full attention and insists on closeness—you either find a space quiet enough to listen to its chimes or cradle it close to your ear. Flip the watch over, and you’ll find a secret dial cradling a disc of Guatemalan white jade. The hours and minutes marked by the “H” and “M” symbols. It’s a moment of clarity reserved only for the owner, who must wind the piece by hand to feed its 72-hour power reserve. Yes, everything so far sounds inconvenient, but intimacy is earned, and maybe that’s the point.
Steel consumes the TO, to the point where the watch doesn’t just use steel—it is steel. As if a monolithic lump of stainless steel had morphed into a timepiece, there are no decorations, no compromise. Twelve stark lines—cut into the outermost ring—demarcate the hours, their sharp geometry slicing the space into twelve distinct segments. These incisions grow deeper on the two inner disks, which serve as hour and minute hands.
Design elements emerge only where material has been carved away, creating a ruthlessly minimal design philosophy that borders on the radical. There are no gilded hands sweeping over enamel dials—just steel on steel, raw metal folding into itself, twisting and churning to reveal the time. The whole thing feels like brutalism distilled into 38mm: cold, unadorned, and unapologetically bare. Yet in its starkness, there is a character about the piece that feels…intrinsic to time itself—as if this is how time itself would choose to be displayed in its purest and most elemental form.
Emptiness reaches its purest form with H. Moser’s Swiss Alp Watch Concept Black—a timepiece that stares back with a void. Encased in a sleek 45.8 mm x 39.8 mm platinum frame, its face is an uninterrupted expanse of glossy black, broken only by a solitary flying tourbillon. Like a black hole, it appears to have swallowed every traditional dial element, leaving behind only darkness and motion. The statement is unmistakable: it’s a bold, unmistakable commentary on the rise of smartwatches.
But where smartwatches are mass-produced, this is hand-assembled. Where they offer touchscreen convenience, this watch demands intentionality. You don’t tap it—you listen. A minute repeater chimes the time when prompted, turning time-telling into ritual. To keep it alive, you wind it by hand once every 87 hours, forging an intimate connection. And instead of step counts and calorie stats on its inky dial, the watch offers only the hypnotic dance of its tourbillon, floating in an abyss. Ultimately, the Concept Black doesn’t give answers—it merely withholds and provokes.
