Perfectly timed comeback for Watches And Wonders Geneva

[GENEVA] As border restrictions ease and world travel resumes, Watches And Wonders finally made its in-person debut at the Palexpo in Geneva on Wednesday (Mar 30).

The week-long luxury timepiece trade show brings under one roof most of the big guns from two long-running fairs - Salon International de la Haute Horlogerie (SIHH), which traditionally takes place in Geneva in January, and Baselworld, which is held in Basel every March.

The press and retailers from all over the world have converged here for about a week to explore the novelties released by the exhibiting maisons.

Incidentally, this is not the first time Watches And Wonders brand has been used; it debuted as an Asian offshoot of SIHH in Hong Kong back in 2015, moved to Miami and then to Sanya in China.

Watches And Wonders Geneva - organised by the Fondation de la Haute Horlogerie, which is also behind SIHH - was originally planned for 2020, but the pandemic forced it to go digital for 2 years before its return to SIHH's original home at the Palexpo this week.

The timing couldn't be better as the Swiss Watch Federation reported that export figures for timepieces reached an all-time high of 22.3 billion Swiss francs (S$32.67 billion) last year - a 31.2 per cent jump from Covid 19-hit 2020.

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Anyone looking for further proof that watch buying has hit fever pitch only needs to look as far as the snaking queues outside Swatch boutiques across the world last weekend, at the launch of the MoonSwatch, Swatch's collaborative model with Omega.

And despite Omega and the rest of the Swatch Group choosing to sit out on Watches And Wonders Geneva, the event still has plenty of firepower: Baselworld's big guns like Rolex, Patek Philippe, Tudor, Zenith, Tag Heuer, Hublot, Chanel and others came on board to occupy a new wing in the sprawling Palexpo.

At the end of the day, it boiled down to the novelties. There was more than enough from the exhibiting maisons to keep the watch lovers glued to social media and watch news websites for glimpses of the latest timepieces the brands were unveiling.

As expected, all eyes were on Rolex. Photos of its new GMT Master II, featuring a black-and-green bezel and a crown on the left, flooded the Internet the moment the fair opened its doors on Wednesday.

Another Swiss watching making giant, Patek Philippe, didn't disappoint either, with its new Calatrava Ref 5326G-001. It is the first time that Patek has combined an annual calendar with a travel time complication. The piece boasts eight patents.

Also flexing its technical prowess was Grand Seiko, the only Japanese watch maker exhibiting at the fair. Its 20-piece limited edition Kodo (Japanese for "heartbeat") timepiece features a watchmaking first - a tourbillon and constant force mechanism housed together. This comes with an eye-watering price tag of 44 million Japanese yen (S$555,000).

Over at the SIHH wing, Cartier unveiled a slew of stunners by giving some of its classics and familiar favourites a facelift. The Tank Chinoise from the roaring 20s, for instance, made a comeback with an eye-catching dial inspired by the architectural design of traditional Chinese windows and doors.

The Vacheron Constantin Historiques 222 from the 70s is also a returnee, in yellow gold and with a new in-house movement, conceptualised by the renowned Jorg Hysek at the age of 24. This watch's integrated bracelet often draws comparisons to equally famous sports watches from the same era, such as Gerald Genta's Audemars Piguet Royal Oak and the Patek Philippe Nautilus.

Some maisons played it coy by showcasing fewer novelties than expected.

A. Lange & Söhne, for instance, had only three watches on show - a facelifted and thinner Grand Lange 1; a Richard Lange minute repeater; and the Odysseus in titanium, a material used for the first time in its timepieces. Zenith's only debut was the Chronomaster Open, which proudly showcases its El Primero movement's beating heart; IWC simply added new colours to its Top Gun collection in a collaboration with Pantone.

If there is anything the pandemic has taught the watch industry, it is that less can sometimes also be more; many brands have adopted the practice of spreading out their novelties over 12 months instead of dropping everything at once at trade fairs like Watches And Wonders.

This way, watch collectors can expect plenty more surprises in the coming months, and the industry ensures it keeps it bottom-line healthy and robust.