Joia de Baume & Mercier: A New Collection Made For Women By Women
With its new Joia collection, Baume & Mercier draws on nearly two centuries of the Maison’s feminine heritage to introduce a watch designed entirely for women, rather than a derivative of one designed for men.
By Ash Longet
Director
Baume & Mercier has always made watches for women. What it hasn’t always done is make watches by women.
The distinction matters. “In the past, women’s watches were often just men’s watches adapted for women,” says Camille Ascoli, the Maison’s communications director. “What we’ve really done with Joia is design a collection made for women.” She says it plainly, without fanfare. Yet the statement carries the weight of an industry reckoning with itself.
Joia – so named to evoke jewels, joy, and light, in roughly equal measure – is Baume & Mercier’s new women’s collection, launched this year at Watches and Wonders 2026 and currently traveling the world in a series of intimate gatherings designed to do something watchmaking rarely does: listen. I attended one held at a sun-drenched villa in Geneva last month, and it felt less like a product launch and more like a room full of women with things to say.
Of course, the watches themselves are elegant and unshowy in the best possible way, so let’s take a look.
The Watches: Small, Considered, Jewel-Like
With 38mm recently becoming the industry’s default unisex case size, the Joia collection seeks to announce its femininity at the outset by utilizing a 28mm and dispensing with lugs altogether.
The case curves softly against the wrist. A black agate crowns the winding stem. The silvery sun-satin dial catches light the way a conversation catches momentum – gradually, then all at once. Interchangeable straps in steel, midnight blue, ivory, and black keep the proposition fluid and personal.
The heritage piece, the M0A10850, goes further. Inspired by an archival design from the 1980s, its bezel carries 40 brilliant-cut diamonds – 0.81 carats of quiet insistence.
Two Centuries of Women First
This lineage matters to Baume & Mercier. When Paul Mercier joined forces with William Baume in 1918 – who was raised, as Ascoli recalls, by his mother alone – the partnership began creating watches for women as objects of desire in their own right.
The 1920s brought sculptural, fantaisie pieces. A 1950s advertisement featured a woman doctor: avant-garde at the time. The Marquise model followed, a watch so jewel-like it scarcely seemed to be one at all.
Joia is this inheritance, brought forward. And the campaign built around it – “My Joia Moment” – understands something that watch advertising usually doesn’t: The meaningful moments in a woman’s life are not always the ones captured on a mood board.
Geneva, and the Women Who Took the Stage
In Geneva, the Maison gave the spotlight to women who embodied the same precision and creative force the collection hopes to express. First, Séverine Redon – the entrepreneur behind the hybrid concept space Parenthèses, founder of collaborative hub HiFlow, art collector, and co-founder of a women’s circle in Paris – spoke about building environments where creativity and commerce hold equal weight.
Then, Anouck Mutsaerts, Geneva-based artistic director for some of the industry’s most recognizable houses and co-founder of jewelry brand Aglagla, described a practice shaped by color, instinct, and an almost hypersensitive attention to the world. Finally, Coralie Druart, founder of non-toxic clothing brand Prestesse, made a startling case: we eat organic, filter our water, curate our skincare – yet still wear plastic against our skin for eight hours a day.
These were not endorsements, but conversations. And that, in the end, may be Joia’s most compelling proposition: a Maison willing to share the stage, pass the microphone, and ask what freedom actually looks like when it fits on a wrist.
Prices & Availabilities
The Joia de Baume & Mercier collection comprises four references. The three core models – the M0A10847 (steel case, midnight blue calfskin strap), the M0A10848 (steel case, integrated H-link bracelet), and the M0A10849 (4N gold PVD case, black calfskin strap) – are available now through Baume & Mercier boutiques and authorized retailers worldwide, starting from CHF 1,290.
Finally, the diamond-set M0A10850 heritage piece with 40 brilliant-cut diamonds (0.81 ct) and a limited-edition flattened-link bracelet is available at CHF 3,790.
All models come with a 24-month international warranty and feature a tool-free interchangeable strap system, with additional calfskin straps available separately in a range of colors including cherry red, coral pink, sage green, and aqua green. For more information, check out the Baume & Mercier website.
(Front image © Jana Anhalt)