Laurence Graff built his company on the proposition that no diamond was too large, too complex, or too historically significant to acquire, transform, and find a worthy home for. The Graff Pink. The Lesedi La Rona rough. The Wittelsbach-Graff. These are not merely stones — they are statements about the ambition of a house that has consistently pursued the apex of its category without compromise. When Graff extended that ambition into watchmaking, the question the industry asked was not whether he would attempt it, but whether the attempt would be credible.
The answer, delivered over the past two decades through a serious investment in Swiss watchmaking infrastructure, is that Graff watches have achieved something rarer than fine gem-setting in timepieces: they have earned the respect of horological purists who care nothing about diamonds.
Building the Foundation
Graff’s formal entry into watchmaking was gradual by design. The house began, as many jewelry brands do, by sourcing movements from established Swiss manufacturers and housing them in cases set with stones from its own inventory. This approach — practiced by Chanel, Chopard, and numerous others — produces beautiful objects but does not constitute genuine watchmaking in the eyes of the industry’s most demanding observers.
The turn came with the establishment of Graff’s dedicated watch development capability and, critically, the decision to pursue in-house movement development. This is an expensive, time-consuming commitment that most jewelry houses avoid. It requires hiring trained watchmakers and movement designers, investing in precision manufacturing equipment, and tolerating a development timeline measured in years before a saleable result exists. Graff made this commitment, and the results began appearing in the mid-2010s.
The watch division operates from facilities in Switzerland, with design and engineering distinct from the jewelry workshops in London and Geneva. This separation is deliberate — it signals that the watch program is not a marketing appendage of the jewelry business but a discipline with its own standards.
The Master Gravity Triple Axis Tourbillon
Graff’s horological statement piece is the Master Gravity Triple Axis Tourbillon, a complication that represents the highest tier of mechanical watchmaking ambition. Understanding why requires a brief explanation of what a triple axis tourbillon actually does and why it matters.
A conventional tourbillon — invented by Abraham-Louis Breguet in 1801 — rotates the escapement and balance wheel within a cage, averaging out the positional errors caused by gravity when a watch is held in a single position. For most of watchmaking history, this solved the primary problem of portable precision. Modern anti-shock systems and improved manufacturing tolerances have reduced the practical timekeeping benefit of the tourbillon, but its mechanical beauty and engineering complexity have made it the premier complication for haute horlogerie.
A multi-axis tourbillon extends the concept by rotating the cage on additional axes simultaneously, theoretically compensating for gravitational errors in multiple positions. A triple axis tourbillon — rotating on three independent axes — is among the most mechanically demanding complications a watchmaker can produce. The number of houses that have successfully developed one in-house can be counted on a single hand.
Graff’s version incorporates what the house calls a “gravity” design — a reference to the aesthetic appearance of the mechanism when viewed through the dial, with the cage suspended in a way that makes its rotation visually dramatic. The movement is built to manufacture standards that would be recognized as serious by any competent horologist, irrespective of the stones surrounding it.
Diamond-Set Sport Timepieces: Investment Calculus
Here the conversation becomes more complex, because Graff produces two distinct categories of watches that require different investment frameworks.
The first category — pure horology pieces in metal, focused on the movement architecture, produced in limited numbers — behaves like serious haute horlogerie from any prestigious independent house. Secondary market data for these watches is limited by their scarcity, which cuts both ways: fewer comparable sales mean less price discovery, but also fewer pieces competing for a small pool of motivated buyers.
The second category — diamond-set cases, dials, and bracelets applied to either complicated or simple movements — is where the jewelry house identity is most visible, and where the investment analysis diverges from purely horological criteria.
Diamond-set timepieces from Graff, at retail, carry prices that combine the cost of the movement with the cost of the diamonds and the hand-setting labor. A fully paved diamond case represents dozens or hundreds of hours of gem-setting work, and the stones themselves — sourced from Graff’s own inventory of exceptional material — carry the house’s quality standards. The result is an object whose value is distributed across two categories: mechanical complication and gemstone content.
The challenge for resale is that the secondary market for heavily diamond-set watches is thinner than for equivalent un-set complications. Buyers who seek horological investment tend to prefer clean dials and metal cases where the movement is unambiguously the subject. Buyers who seek jewelry investment tend to prefer unmounted stones or classic jewelry forms rather than functional watches. Diamond-set timepieces occupy a space that neither community treats as primary.
The Collector’s Perspective
The sophisticated Graff collector understands this dynamic and positions acquisitions accordingly. Pure complications — the Master Gravity, the Graff MasterGraff Tourbillon — are acquired for their horological merit and held in that context. Diamond-set pieces are understood as jewelry objects that happen to incorporate movement mechanics, with value derived primarily from the quality of the diamonds and the prestige of the house’s gem-setting craft.
This framing is not a criticism of diamond-set watches — it is an accurate description of how the market treats them. A Graff diamond paved bracelet watch retaining 60 percent of retail on the secondary market is performing in line with fine jewelry from a comparable house, which is entirely respectable. Expecting it to behave like a Patek Philippe Ref. 5711 is a category error.
Where Graff’s horological investment may prove most durable is in the very long term. Houses that have invested genuinely in in-house movement development tend to see that investment acknowledged by serious collectors over time — sometimes decades after the initial development. Breguet’s reputation recovered fully only after Swatch Group’s investment in authenticating its heritage. Independent houses like F.P. Journe and Philippe Dufour achieved recognition that lagged their creative output by years.
Graff’s movement investment is real, and the house’s gemological prestige provides a foundation that most independent watchmakers lack. The combination — genuine horology supported by the world’s most credible diamond operation — is unique. Whether the market will price that combination at its full worth remains the open question.
What the Future Holds
Graff has signaled continued commitment to the watch program with development of additional proprietary complications. The house’s financial position — privately held, with revenues supported by one of the world’s most profitable jewelry operations — provides resources that few independent watchmakers can match.
For collectors building positions in ultra-luxury watches, Graff’s pure horological pieces represent an undervalued opportunity relative to comparable complications from Swiss manufacture houses with larger marketing budgets. The work is serious. The stones — when present — are exceptional. And the house’s track record of pursuing the finest material in any category it touches suggests that its watchmaking ambitions will deepen rather than plateau.
In a market crowded with jewelry brands that affix complications to outsourced movements and call it haute horlogerie, Graff’s genuine investment in movement development is worth more than its current market pricing reflects.
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