Watchonista’s 30 Under 30(ish) List for 2025, Part II

Yesterday, we unveiled part one of our 30 Under 30(ish) List for 2025. Today, Watchonista is proud to present the second half of our fourth annual roundup of interesting, intriguing, and innovative people under 30(ish) in the watch community.

This year, we’re cheered by the fact that the list of candidates seems inexhaustible. Which means that since our last list was published, there has been an explosion of new voices and talent in our industry and community. And we’re confident that this year’s cohort will continue to inspire both the generation coming up behind them (and us over 30ish folks as well).

So, without further ado, Watchonista presents, in alphabetical order, the second half of our 30 Under 30(ish) class of 2025!

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The Cartier Watchmaking Talents of Tomorrow Prize celebrates the excellence and creativity of young watchmaking apprentices and technicians hailing from France, Switzerland, and Belgium.

In 2024, the theme of the competition was “The Magic of the Senses,” and students were invited to reinterpret the movement of a Cartier carriage clock. Mandrillon – a student from the Lycée Edgar Faure in Morteau, France – won the first prize in the Technicians category for magical creation, Œil du Temps, a telescoping timepiece that he says was inspired by optical effects.

As a winner, Madrillon received a Cartier watch and an invitation for an apprenticeship with the storied maison.
 

Visitors to the Horological Society of New York’s library know that reading is fundamental.

It is, simply, the world’s most extensive collection of horological books, clocks, and watches, and it keeps getting bigger, especially with the addition of the new Jost Bürgi Research Library and its fascinating collection of books donated by a single collector, a Swiss-born, New Jersey-based man named Fortunat Mueller-Maerki.

However, this impressive resource would be meaningless without the work of Dr. Miranda Marraccini, who moved to New York in 2023 to become HSNY’s full-time librarian. Marraccini comes from an academic background, and while knowledgeable in watches before, jumping into such a specialized and rarified world was an enjoyable challenge.

As the HSNY’s librarian, Dr. Marraccini does more than catalogue and preserve rare books; she’s also responsible for visitor outreach, sourcing new additions to the collections, and writing articles for the library’s website. It sounds like a dream job to us.
 

According to the Wall Street Journal, YouTube is now the king of TV. Audiences that once got cozy on the couch binge-watching Netflix are now tuning into niche programming from creators like Jorge Moss, watching short videos on YouTube.

Hailing from Swindon in the UK, Moss’s twin passions are YouTube and timepieces, which makes Watch Yourself Jorge, the self-described wristwatch nerd’s YouTube channel, even more charming.

Because YouTube is interactive via DMs and the comments section, Moss’s viewers – often young people looking to purchase their first timepieces – are invited to talk and learn more about the brands and their history. In short, Moss’s enthusiasm is a gateway drug for many a future watch nerd.
 

If you haven’t heard of it, Time to Taste is a YouTube cooking show featuring co-hosts Dillon Bhatt (from our 2023 list) and Lara Poppy, who interview watch industry professionals like George Bamford and Pierre Jacques in her kitchen.

A native of Switzerland, Poppy describes herself as “Digital Born,” or of the generation that has no memory of life without YouTube. As a result, creating content comes as naturally as the conversations on the show about luxury timepieces and the people who make them, often with a focus on luxury brands like Cartier and De Bethune.
 

By day, Erika Ratini is a food scientist. By night, she travels the world, immersing herself in culture as her alter ego, Miss GMT.

On social media, she invites fans into her world of collecting highly complicated timepieces and learning their cultural influences, challenging expectations around the kind of timepieces women are supposed to collect. And she is a champion for niche brands like Otsuka Lotec.

Her insights on collecting have also caught the attention of brands. Last April, she was invited to participate in a panel at Bucherer Watch Week in New York.
 

One of the joys of compiling Watchonista’s 30 Under 30ish list is having past honorees nominate fellow up-and-comers. After all, this list is for the community by the community. This year, Charity Mehnde from our class of 2024 suggested Nigerian Canadian Hamzat Rotimi, founder of Sovrygn Watches, a brand of high-quality watches and accessories.

Rotimi started his journey as a young boy with a fascination for watches and engineering (in high school, he could sketch diagrams and plans from memory). After getting his engineering degree, Rotimi corralled all his interests – including buying and selling watches online and 3D modeling – and started his own brand.

Sovrygn’s most popular offerings are the colorful, angular Calendar collection and a series of luxe watch cases. And even though he is just getting started, he is also committed to making a positive impact beyond his business endeavors.

Meanwhile, Sovrygn’s collaborations with organizations like the Imani Foundation and Never Settle reflect his commitment to sustainability and societal progress.
 

Ripley Sellers is an interesting example of the “New Watch Media.” Since graduating with a degree in economics, he has successfully connected with the collector community by reviewing watches and profiling industry players, while also producing entertaining writing. What enthusiasts appreciate about Seller’s writing is his informative explorations into materials, manufacturing, and movements.

He joined A Blog to Watch in 2022. Since then, the California-native has also begun exploring the cultural context of watches (i.e., why we are drawn to certain watches) and has started many conversations on why we should care about watches at all.
 

The UK is experiencing a watchmaking renaissance, thanks to brands like Christopher Ward and Studio Underd0g, as well as events like British Watchmakers’ Day. What’s exciting about this new scene is that it’s also giving rise to a new generation of industry players like designer Magnus Swann.

While still a student, Swann got a year-long placement at Studio Underd0g, where he was involved in projects such as the brand’s Project Passi0n collaboration with H. Moser & Cie.

And, as part of his final university project, he established his own watch brand, Anemoic (pronounced an-uh-moy-ik), and its first model, the Versailles. Fun Fact: The word “anemoic” stems from “anemoia,” which is a nostalgia for a time you never experienced.

The design of the Versailles owes a little of its inspiration to the futuristic French timepieces of the 1970s. We’re talking Pierre Cardin’s Espace collection and artist Serge Manzon’s sculptural pieces for Longines.

While the Versailles is still in the prototype stage, we have high hopes for Swann.
 

Shona Taine first fell in love with watchmaking at the age of 10, after visiting the Prague Astronomical Clock, and has been attracting attention since graduating from Lycée Edgard Faure's watchmaking program in 2019 because, after just six months of post-graduate work with an independent watchmaker, she hung out her shingle, launching Khemea at the tender age of 22.

In 2023, the Frenchwoman became a member of the Académie Horlogère des Créateurs Indépendants (AHCI), joining the ranks of indie legends such as François-Paul Journe, Sylvain Pinaud, Philippe Dufour, and Kari Voutilainen.

Taine’s first watch is the 40mm Arkhea, which is powered by her own K.10 movement and features a tourbillon by Olivier Mory. This prototype serves as the basis for the current Khemea Édition Souscription series in Grade 5 titanium, and, in the spirit of independence, she also performs all the traditional machining and hand-finishing herself.
 

According to her Instagram profile, Meg Tocci is a Colorado native, a military historian, and a contributing writer for some of your favorite watch blogs. However, it might be easier to describe her as an explorer who takes timepieces along for the ride.

Tocci began collecting watches in 2021 and started showcasing her collection in the wild, posting wrist shots from National Parks and Disney Parks alike. Like many collectors, she is also a fan of “everyday carry” images, and her passion for the outdoors, watches, and gear naturally led her to writing about watches. Our favorite stories involve field testing timepieces.

For those of us who are a little more sedentary, Tocci’s reviews of watches in the wild make us feel like we’ve also gone on an adventure.
 

New York City’s Trang Trinh is the creative force behind Girls O’Clock – a social platform devoted to exploring the world of women’s watches through a fresh and youthful filter. And as a fashion editor by trade, her opinions on timepieces are informed by issues such as craftsmanship and design.

Trinh has also become a TikTok sensation because of her approach to collecting. She presents watches not as a collection that sits in a bank vault, but rather as an essential part of one’s wardrobe, meant not only to be worn but also to be styled in unexpected ways.

She approaches her personal collection with a similar élan, with each piece telling part of the story of life in her twenties.
 

Leonardo Tsai (husband of Kristine Lam from part one of our 2025 list) hails from Hong Kong and was born into a watch dial-making family. Still, he started his professional career in finance, studying in the UK for a couple of years before returning to HK to work for JP Morgan. Yet watchmaking tugged at his heart, and he decided to carry on the family legacy while also pursuing something very modern.

Tsai launched the Selten Watch Company in 2017. The name “selten” is taken from the German word for “rare.” According to Tsai, “The quality, craftsmanship, and beauty of German watches, as well as the resilience of the German watchmaking industry, serve as a strong inspiration for me.”

Seven years later, Tsai has come full circle, with the microbrand integrating his family’s history in dial making with the introduction of its Métiers d’Art collection’s Grand Feu Enamel Series.
 

Most enthusiasts will tell you that behind the spec sheets and marketing hype, watches are ultimately about the stories they tell. Thus, as a UK-based writer and photographer, Tim Vaux has an advantage because he has two powerful mediums at his disposal with which to share these tales – the pen and the camera. There’s an old journalistic adage that you should write like there are no pictures and take pictures like there are no words. Vaux’s contributions to publications like Hodinkee, Wired, and Fratello certainly meet these criteria.

Vaux’s specialty is providing context by capturing watches in settings that illustrate how they interact with the wearer in the real world. In both words and images, Vaux often emphasizes overlooked details, such as how a watch sits on the wrist or how different light sources affect a watch’s appearance. This is no small talent.
 

You may have noticed that some of our 30 Under 30(ish) honorees come from generations of watchmaking families, while others are new to the industry. Well, Kari Voutilainen’s daughter, Venla, is not only a watchmaker in her own right, but her interest in horology has nothing to do with her famous father – she fell in love with watchmaking at the age of 14, at a career fair.

As she told Europa Star in a recent interview, “When you’re a kid, you’re not interested in your parents’ job. You don’t wonder what it is they do all day. My mother was a [scrub] nurse and surgical instrument technician. My father had his office at home. I’d wander into his workshop from time to time, but that was all.”

Instead of training with her father’s independent brand, she apprenticed with the mass manufacturer Vaucher from 2015 to 2019. Then, rather than take a job in her native Switzerland, she traveled to Singapore to work in after-sales service at the retailer The Hour Glass.

She first worked with her father in 2019 (just as she was sitting the final exam for her apprenticeship), when Venla co-created a one-off 42mm white gold pocket watch for the bi-annual Only Watch charity auction held in Monaco. Then, in 2022, she became Chief Operating Officer of Urban Jürgensen, where she has been a driving presence in the revitalization of the 250-year-old Scandinavian independent watch brand.

Yes, Co-CEOs Alex Rosenfield and Kari Voutilainen are bringing your favorite niche watch collector’s favorite niche watch back to boutiques, but it’s Venla Voutilainen who is guiding the company’s new direction.
 

Once upon a time, watch brands had ambassadors – athletes and celebrities who were photographed for newspapers and magazines wearing luxurious clothing and sporting fantastic watches. However, now up-and-coming collectors are just as likely to be influenced by the people creating media for online platforms such as YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram.

Montrealer Nolan Daniel White is one of these multi-platform style influencers, And while his focus is fashion, anytime he posts a reel of himself trying on an A. Lange & Söhne watch, TikTok notices.

Why? Because people want to know how to wear watches. They want to learn how to incorporate their favorite pieces into their lifestyle, and by incorporating cult brands, affordable homages, and vintage finds into his style tutorials, he is also making horology more accessible to all.