For the better part of horological history, mechanical chronographs have worked the same way: a control system, whether column wheel or cam, trips a sequence of levers and springs to start, stop, and reset a seconds hand. The execution has been refined endlessly, with evermore contemporary materials and in the hands of the umpteenth dexterous watchmaker. The principle of the mechanism, however, has remained an unquestioned staple. At Watches & Wonders 2026, TAG Heuer arrived with something that upends that entirely, and housed it in the most iconic square case in watchmaking.

TAG Heuer presented two Monaco releases at the fair that together marked its most consequential product moment in a decade. The first is the Monaco Chronograph: a thoroughly redesigned, ergonomically modernised interpretation of the reference 1133 that started it all in 1969, now powered by a new in-house movement. The second is the Monaco Evergraph, a watch housing what TAG Heuer describes as a fundamental reinvention of the chronograph mechanism itself. Both deserve serious attention, and both reward being understood on their own terms.

TAG Heuer had spent several years building towards this moment. The Monaco Split-Seconds Chronograph of 2024 laid the engineering and design groundwork for the new case architecture; the TH-Carbonspring oscillator debuted at Geneva Watch Days 2025. The brand arrived at Watches & Wonders 2026 with those investments converging into two watches that together restated what the Monaco stands for and pushed the chronograph complication into new territory.

Monaco Chronograph: Back to 1133

The Monaco has evolved continuously since Jack Heuer unveiled it alongside the Calibre 11, the world’s first commercially available automatic chronograph movement, launched on March 3, 1969. When the design returned in 1997 after its initial five-year production run, TAG Heuer itself acknowledged it was a reinterpretation rather than a faithful continuation: the square shape survived, but much else took a new direction. The 2026 Monaco Chronograph charts a deliberate course back to the source, the reference 1133, recapturing the defining elements that collectors have long admired in the original.

The new 39mm case moves to grade 5 titanium, reducing weight substantially and transforming how the watch sits on the wrist. TAG Heuer’s Product Development Director Maria Laffont describes ergonomics as the central obsession of the redesign. “We are the watchmaker of performance, so we needed to have for our icon something that is really ergonomic,” she explains. The caseback curves from the central section outward toward the edges, conforming to the wrist rather than sitting flat. The sapphire crystal approaches a true square form. The lugs taper, drawing the strap flush into the case. Every surface detail earned its place through the lens of wearability.

The dial receives equally considered treatment. TAG Heuer’s designers revised the typography and text placement throughout, sharpening legibility across all three references. The hour indices now point toward the minute track, a subtle directional change that improves functional clarity and draws the eye more precisely to the scale. Applied elements and contrasting subdials introduce visual depth without compromising the graphic confidence that has always defined the Monaco’s face. In the blue reference, the silver opalin counters against the blue backdrop echo the original reference 1133 closely enough to satisfy collectors who have studied the original obsessively; across all three, the overall composition reads as wholly contemporary.

The movement is the Calibre TH20-11, developed from the TH20-00 platform that Movements Director Carole Forestier- Kasapi has built into the backbone of the brand’s chronograph range since 2020. The TH20-11 adopts a bi-compax layout with subsidiary counters at three and nine o’clock and a date window at six, paying deliberate homage to the original Calibre 11 layout, which gives the movement its name. The crown remains at nine o’clock, the signature code born of the Buren and Dubois-Depraz module integration in 1969 and one of the Monaco’s most recognisable identifiers. The TH20-11 delivers an 80-hour power reserve and carries a five-year warranty.

The collection launched in three references. The blue dial variant, with red lacquered hour markers on the minute track, red- tipped hands, and a red central chronograph hand, stands as the closest modern interpretation of the watch McQueen wore during Le Mans in 1971. A sunray-brushed dark green reference draws on British Racing Green, with black opalin subdials and rhodium-finished detailing. The third pairs a black opalin dial with a two-tone case of grade 5 titanium and 18K 5N rose gold. Each wears on a perforated leather strap with a newly designed titanium folding clasp.

The Monaco Evergraph: A New Category

First, a deep breath. The Monaco Evergraph moves the conversation into a very different territory. A standard chronograph coordinates its start, stop, and reset through a control system, whether column wheel or cam, connects the chronograph with the going train via a clutch, and translates pusher presses into action through levers and springs. The lateral clutch meets the going train side-on and can produce a fractional jump of the seconds hand on engagement; the vertical clutch engages from above and eliminates that jump. Both constructions depend on rigid components interacting under friction, and those components wear.

TAG Heuer’s engineers at the TAG Heuer LAB in La Chaux-de-Fonds spent five years asking a single question: is it possible to build a chronograph that delivers identical sensation and identical accuracy on every actuation, from the first press to the ten- thousandth and beyond? The Calibre TH80-00 is the answer.

Flexible by Design: The Compliant Chronograph

The TH80-00 replaces virtually the entire conventional chronograph architecture, levers, springs, column wheel and clutch, with two flexible bistable components. One governs start and stop; the other governs reset. TAG Heuer produces these components using LIGA technology (Lithographie, Galvanoformung, Abformung), a high- precision manufacturing process adapted from microelectronics that achieves tolerances and geometries beyond the reach of conventional machining. Each component snaps between two stable positions, engaged or disengaged, through elastic deformation of its own geometry. The mechanism carries no friction surfaces that can wear and no springs that can fatigue.

Pressing the 2 o’clock pusher on the Evergraph feels unlike any other chronograph. There is no resistance from a column wheel advancing under spring pressure, no stack of levers moving simultaneously. Instead, a single flexible blade deflects until it reaches a critical threshold and snaps cleanly to its second stable position, opening the clutch and starting the chronograph second hand. A second press returns the blade to its first position, closing the clutch and stopping the hand. TAG Heuer calls this bistability, explained on its own platform as controlled deformation rather than articulated rotation. The reset at four o’clock works through a second bistable component on the same principle, loading and releasing to drive its hammer onto the heart cams and return the counters to zero. The two components interact directly: The start/ stop blade physically blocks the reset hammer from reaching the heart cams while the chronograph runs, a geometric lock that holds regardless of component age or wear. In a conventional chronograph, this clearance depends on a spring-loaded detent, and when that spring fatigues, the reset hammer can contact the heart cam mid-run and kick the second hand. The Evergraph eliminates that possibility by design rather than by managing it. Revolution’s technical examination (by Cheryl Chia) of the TH80-00 confirms this distinction in detail.

TAG Heuer calls this a compliant chronograph mechanism, borrowing a term from mechanical engineering that describes structures achieving motion through controlled deformation of flexible elements. The practical result is a chronograph whose pusher feel, timing accuracy, and mechanical state remain consistent across the entire life of the movement. The brand presents this not as a marginal refinement but as a structural reinvention of the complication.

The TH80-00 pairs this mechanism with the TH-Carbonspring oscillator, the brand’s proprietary carbon hairspring that Forestier-Kasapi presented at Geneva Watch Days 2025. A quick, curious detour: Forestier-Kasapi’s connection to LIGA predates TAG Heuer, as a young movement designer, when she won the Prix de la Fondation Abraham-Louis Breguet in 1997 with a radical concept: a crownless watch in which a revolving movement sat within a mainspring barrel spanning almost the full diameter of the case. That prize-winning design went on to become the conceptual foundation of the Ulysse Nardin Freak of 2001, the watch that introduced silicon escapement wheels to the industry and opened the door to LIGA manufacturing in horology. Forestier-Kasapi did not design the LIGA components herself; that development came through Dr Ludwig Oechslin and CSEM after she joined Ulysse Nardin. Her original concept created the platform on which LIGA-produced silicon parts first entered a production watch. The brilliant horological mind now deploying LIGA bistable components inside the Evergraph was present at the very beginning of that technology’s journey into watchmaking. That is not coincidence; it is the shape of a long career built around a consistent appetite for materials and mechanisms that did not yet exist.

That career has also shaped a distinctive philosophy. Speaking to WOW Singapore ahead of Watches & Wonders 2026, Forestier-Kasapi outlined a movement strategy built around long-term durability and quality, one that explicitly holds those outcomes above the question of whether a movement originates in-house or through partnership. The TH80-00 is the practical result of that philosophy. TAG Heuer developed the Calibre TH80-00 in close partnership with Vaucher Manufacture Fleurier, the Fleurier-based manufacture that also contributed to the Calibres TH81-00 and TH81-01 in the Monaco and Carrera Split-Seconds Chronographs. The compliant mechanism originated entirely within the TAG Heuer LAB: five years of development by the brand’s own engineers, using LIGA manufacturing techniques that Vaucher did not supply. What Vaucher contributed was the surrounding movement architecture, the base calibre construction, the winding system, and the finishing standards that elevate the TH80-00 to haute horlogerie territory.

Designed to resist magnetic interference and hold its dimensions across temperature variation, the TH-Carbonspring addresses two of the most persistent adversaries of chronograph precision. In the TH80-00 it beats at 5 Hz (36,000 vph), delivers a 70-hour power reserve, holds COSC certification, and carries a five-year warranty.

A Movement Built for Its Case

TAG Heuer designed the TH80-00 from the outset as an inverted construction, placing the barrel, gear train, and TH-Carbonspring balance and escapement on the dial side. The movement is also square, purpose-built for the Monaco case, achieving a structural harmony between movement and case that serves both the mechanics and the visual architecture of the watch. The transparent acrylic dial produces the impression that the indications float within the case, suspended above the mechanical landscape below. In the metal, the effect rewards prolonged attention.

The open-worked design carries its own technical signature: the chequered-flag finish from the split-seconds Calibre TH81-00 reappears on the movement’s reverse surface, alongside the shield-shaped oscillating weight. These continuities thread the Evergraph deliberately into TAG Heuer’s Avant-Garde Horlogerie visual vocabulary, establishing it as a peer of the split-seconds rather than a separate experiment. The inverted construction places the TH-Carbonspring balance and escapement on the dial side, keeping the mechanism’s most technically significant element directly in the wearer’s sightline. The watch makes a technical argument through its dial: What you see running is precisely the reason it runs differently from everything else.

The 40mm grade 5 titanium case follows the same ergonomic logic as the Monaco Chronograph, tracing its silhouette back to the reference 1133. Tapered profiles create a visual sense of thinness. Sharp facets along the case edges give the watch a tactile, architectural presence. The crown sits at nine o’clock and the pushers have been elongated for more confident actuation. A screwed sapphire caseback provides unobstructed visibility of the movement from below, completing a watch that rewards examination from every angle.

TAG Heuer launched the Evergraph in two executions. The grade 5 titanium version carries blue opalin subdials, rhodium- finished open-worked hands with red lacquered tips, and a red central chronograph hand, its blue rubber strap finished with grey stitching, a direct nod to the 1133B that McQueen made legendary. The black DLC-coated titanium version takes a more aggressive posture: black opalin subdials, black gold-coated hands with red lacquered tips, and a black rubber strap with red stitching that draws on TAG Heuer’s motorsport palette. Both retail at US$25,000.

What the Evergraph Actually Means

TAG Heuer calls the Evergraph a reinvention of the chronograph mechanism. That is a large claim. It is also the right one. The departure is structural – this is a proper innovation. Applying the compliant mechanism principle to a chronograph, a complication demanding rapid, repeatable, precisely coordinated engagement and disengagement, marks a genuine departure from every chronograph construction currently in production. Plenty of specialists, includng Revolution and EuropaStar , confirm it is the first timepiece to feature a compliant chronograph mechanism, and TAG Heuer’s official magazine is equally direct: the TH80-00 was built from a blank page, conceived entirely around the new mechanism rather than adapted from an existing calibre.

According to the WWG presentation, the bistable components are fabricated in nickel-phosphorus via LIGA, a material combination delivering the geometric precision and elastic consistency the mechanism requires. The same state transitions achieved by column wheel or cam now occur without friction, without wear, and without tactile degradation. Five years of TAG Heuer LAB development combined with Vaucher’s movement expertise provide sound grounds for confidence. Durability in the field will confirm this.

As Laffont explains, the motivation was performance, not demonstration. “We were convinced that there is a way to improve this chronograph mechanism,” she says. “It’s not because the existing one is bad; it’s more because we were driven by this belief that we can go even further.” The team held a conviction that the conventional mechanism had room for improvement and built towards that conviction rather than towards a headline. The LIGA manufacturing process made the required precision of component geometry achievable only recently; the ambition may have predated the capability, but TAG Heuer waited until the technology was ready.

For now, the TH80-00 stays within the Monaco collection, confirmed as exclusive to the Evergraph. The square movement suits the square case, and TAG Heuer has not indicated plans to extend the platform. The Evergraph establishes a new tier within TAG Heuer’s chronograph range, one that sits above the automatic chronograph and alongside the split-seconds as a statement of what the brand’s engineering culture can achieve at full stretch.

A Monaco Moment

The original Monaco emerged from one of watchmaking’s great collective efforts. Project 99, the industry collaboration that brought together Buren, Dubois-Depraz, Heuer and Breitling, produced the Calibre 11 on March 3, 1969, presented simultaneously in Geneva and New York. Heuer launched three watches carrying the movement that day: the Autavia, the Carrera, and the Monaco. The Monaco was the most radical of the three, distinguished by its square, water-resistant case, a first for the industry made possible by case supplier Piquerez, who had developed a patented square case that could be fully sealed, something no chronograph case manufacturer had achieved before. Jack Heuer secured exclusive rights to the design. The watch that resulted was bold, forward- looking, and entirely of its moment.

Fifty-seven years later, TAG Heuer returned to that same spirit at Watches & Wonders 2026, with two watches that make a case for the Monaco’s continuing relevance on their own engineering merits. The Monaco Chronograph gives collectors the most ergonomically resolved and mechanically accomplished version of the icon the brand has produced. The Evergraph addresses a different question entirely, one that has nothing to do with heritage and everything to do with what the chronograph complication can become when its foundational assumptions are set aside.

Both watches carry the same square case, the same crown at nine o’clock, the same Monaco lineage. What separates them is a question of ambition. One advances the known. The other defines what comes next. The Evergraph asked whether the mechanism at the heart of the chronograph could be built on entirely different principles, and the answer, arrived at after five years of development, was yes. The Monaco has always made powerful statements. This year, it made two.

This story was first seen as part of the WOW #84 Vision 2026 issue.

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