This year’s Watches and Wonders fair in Geneva is the biggest so far, with 60 exhibiting brands (up six on last year) and more public access than ever before. There’s also a host of sideshows, including watchmaking demonstrations from apprentices, not to mention a new food court and jewellery story-telling workshops for children. But back to the main event, what are the horological highlights of this year’s show?
Bulgari
This is the first year that Bvlgari moves from exhibiting in hotel suites to showing in the exhibition halls of Watches and Wonders proper. Its debut is marked, inevitably, with a Serpenti (the Serpenti Aeterna), but as you have never seen it before. Much in the way that Brâncuși moved from figurative to seemingly abstract works that only hinted at their subjects, there is only the subtlest suggestion, no more, of a snake on this attractive and sculptural diamond-set bangle watch. Meanwhile, in haute horlogerie, the Octo Finissimo Ultra, that paradigm of Ozempic watchmaking, further explores the skeletonised aesthetic that Bvlgari began with the Finissimo and its eight-day power reserve in 2022.
Cartier
Cartier has yet to run out of classics to revive as part of Cartier Privé, arguably the best retro-retread-revival-resurrection platform in the business. So far, the brand has tackled the Crash, the Cloche, the Tonneau, the Tortue, the Pebble, the Tank Normale, the Tank Asymétrique, Tank Chinoise, the Tank Normale and the Tank Cintrée. This year it is the turn of the Tank à Guichets. I suppose you could call it an early digital watch inasmuch as the time is told by numbers that appear in windows that pierce an otherwise blank surface.
Jaeger-LeCoultre rose-gold Reverso Tribute Nonantieme, £68,500
Chopard rose-gold LUC Quattro Spirit 25, £61,600
Intriguingly, the guichet seems to be having a moment as a similar watch has already been launched by Louis Vuitton, and Watches and Wonders sees another from Jaeger-LeCoultre, the guichet Reverso Tribute Nonantieme (set in a night sky of midnight blue enamel) – this being just one of nine different new styles of Reverso, including the Reverso Of Precious Flowers, the Reverso Tribute Enamel Shahnameh and the Reverso Tribute Monoface Small Seconds – it’s enough to give you square eyes. Also making a statement with its dial is Chopard’s straw marquetry Jump Hour – very chic in a Jean-Michel Frank kind of way.
A Lange & Söhne
Normally so discreet and self-effacing, the Glashütte-founded brand has surprised, astonished and, in my case, delighted watch lovers by issuing a full “Honeygold” case and bracelet Odysseus. While perfect for summer swimming in the river Elbe in Dresden, birthplace of the brand’s founder Ferdinand Adolph Lange, this watch is more likely to appear on the Côte d’Azur.
Panerai
A new CEO, Emmanuel Perrin, takes over the storied maker of what at the moment are unfashionably large watches. But there remains a hard core of collectors, the Paneristi, who doubtless will be delighted to see the new lighter, thinner, 500m Luminor Marina with its uncompromisingly generous 44mm case. I hope that having weathered so much of the small watch squall, they cleave to their values and don’t bow to fashion now… anything under 40mm just wouldn’t be right for a man’s Panerai.
And it’s not the only brand to retain its membership in the mid-40mm-club: look out for IWC’s 44mm The Big Pilot’s Watch Shock Absorber Tourbillon Skeleton XPL – for the first time the patented SPRIN-g Protect shock absorber system cradles a tourbillon in its protective embrace.
Patek Philippe
It is a year of power reserve at Patek Philippe. There is an eight day Calatrava with a day-date function; it also has the Clous de Paris caseband now becoming a signature of the more exalted watches in the Calatrava line. There’s also a 31-day power reserve desk clock, modelled on the originals owned by the great Patek collectors Henry Graves Jr and James Ward Packard. Precision is astonishing: +/-1 second a day: every self-respecting plutocrat should have at least one at just over SFr1mn.
The other big news is a “baby” (40mm) Cubitus – and I can quite see myself wearing the brown dial pink-gold iteration.
Piaget
CEO Benjamin Comar is revising Piaget with beautiful watches that explore the late 1960s and 1970s high period of Piaget when jewellery and horology came together as never before. As well as doubling down on the triumphant return of the “real” Polo (not the embarrassing steel Nautilus-alike) with a white-gold version – please can we have a bicolour too? – the brand is enriching its core offer to women with the Sixtie. A trapezoidal watch (available on a bracelet or, even better, as a sautoir), it again recalls the brand’s golden age. Dials can be restrained, if you prefer your Piaget on the quieter side; but it cries out to be worn with the turquoise dial.
Rolex
Rolex Everose-gold Oyster Perpetual Land-Dweller, £77,250
The release of an entirely new Oyster, the Land-Dweller, watch is one of the most significant Rolex launches so far this century. Given that the addition or subtraction of a millimetre to a case diameter at Rolex is the cause of mild hysteria in the watch community, it is hard to envisage the Internet breaking impact that the Land-Dweller will have. And don’t forget it is the 80th birthday of the Datejust, a true classic and one of the most recognisable watches in the world, so expect some action around this model, too.
TAG Heuer
This year TAG Heuer is (almost) all about Formula 1 – after all, if you have spent a fortune on the sponsorship of Grand Prix motor racing you will want a bit of ROI. So, the year’s key launch is a reworking of the original Formula 1 watch from the 1980s, with all the bright pops of colour that those of us who are old enough to remember recall as well. It was not top end, but it was fun. The new-gen F1 will come in both a core range of colours (yellow, blue, green, black etc) with limited runs of different colours for individual Grands Prix. The original was equipped with a quartz movement, but the revival uses neither conventional quartz nor a cheap mechanical calibre, but is instead fitted with the brand’s sun-powered “solargraph” movement. At the other end of the price scale there will be 10 limited-edition white ceramic Monacos fitted with the Carole Forestier-designed chronograph rattrapante made and dedicated to the 75th anniversary of Formula 1.
Van Cleef & Arpels
Over the past 10 to 15 years, Van Cleef & Arpels has emerged as a watchmaker of note, recognised by multiple wins at the GPHG. It sets itself apart with its “poetic complications”: dials with flowers that open and close to tell the time, watches where butterflies flutter and flowers wave gently in the wind and a watch in which two lovers walk towards each other on a bridge to meet for a kiss. This last watch was launched 15 years ago and now there is a sequel, the Lady Arpels Bal des Amoureux Automate watch, where the lovers have left the bridge and are dancing down a Parisian street. (Equally visually beguiling is the dial of Hermès’ new Slim d’Hermès, with vintage carriages by designer and illustrator Daiske Nomura playing around the dial.)
Hermès white-gold Slim d’Hermès Voitures en Equilibre, £74,000
Vacheron Constantin
The made-to-order Vacheron Constantin Cabinotiers Solaria Ultra Grand Complication dazzles with its surfeit of complications. Vacheron claims it is the most complicated wristwatch ever made and off-hand I cannot think of another one that boasts 41 complications. I am particularly intrigued by the complication calling itself “the temporal tracking of celestial objects”, which I am reliably informed is not a mechanical UFO detection system, more’s the pity. This star creation is ably supported by a cast of classics from the Traditionnelle and the even more restrained Patrimony.
Zenith
I applaud Zenith’s idea to re-engineer the fabled Calibre 135, first launched in 1949. Although Zenith is far better known for its El Primero, the 135 is a true cult and its reappearance on the brand’s 160th birthday is a stroke of genius. The new 135 is not a straight copy but rather an enhanced version of the original: power reserve is boosted from 40 hours to a more contemporary 72, energy loss has been mitigated by a new gear train, but the familiar offset centre wheel remains, making space to accommodate the signature oversized balance wheel which retains the original frequency of 18,000vph, recalling a gentler age of watchmaking. Cased in platinum, the watch is known simply as GFJ (initials of the Zenith founder Georges Favre-Jacot).
