PRIMETIME - March 2022
Watchmaking in the News.
Let’s start with Watches & Wonders that will take place at the convention centre near the airport of Geneva and no less than 38 brands will be located under that same roof. Of course all the Richemond brands, as well as all the Baselworld transfers, such as Patek, Rolex, Chopard, Oris, TAG Heuer, Hublot, so a total of 24 “big” brands if I can say so and there will also find quite some changes at the Carré des Horlogers section with another 14 brands including Angelus, H. Moser, Arnold & Son, Armin Strom, Ressence and Trilobe to name a few.
But scattered around the city of Geneva, we have more action with more or less all the players of the AHCI being united at the Iceberg gallery with some of our good friends such as Konstantin Chaykin but also some cool newcomers, then we have the Barton 7 event with another 8 smaller independent outfits such as Singer, Schwartz Etienne and Genus, and then we have Time to Watches with another 25 brands approximately, including Corum, Chronoswiss, L’Epée, Louis Erard, Sinn, Reservoir and just wanted to say that it’s been really nerve-racking for the organisers of this show as brands committed to participating at the last minute and it’s only very recently that they attained the critical mass securing this event which will take place in the main Geneva Art School called the HEAD.
And if this wasn’t enough, well the fiesta doesn’t end here and maybe some of you who follow the industry quite closely noticed that we have no MB&F, no URWERK at the Carré des Horlogers as these brands preferred to do their own thing at their own location and some others will be in hotel suites for instance.
So, yes, ultimately it’s going to be super intense and though some of the venues will be accessible to the public, we are nevertheless talking more of a B-to-B event, but depending on the success of this coming edition we will see if in the future this could be opened to a wider audience, we definitely hope so, but you can count on us to make you feel as we managed to sneak you in with us and we will do our very best to cover as much as possible what feels like a return to certain normality, though we already know for instance that there won’t be too many Asian visitors.
Very recently we had the pleasure of having Mme Evelyne Genta come to our club space to talk about the legacy of her husband Gerald Genta and the 30 original designs put on auction by Sotheby’s. If you haven’t seen it, well I clearly invite you to do so, it was really interesting to hear some behind the scenes stories which enabled me to better understand the creative process of the legendary designer.
Anyhow, you could bid online for these 30 lots over a period of 10 days, lots including the original design of the Royal Oak and the first “go-at-it” by Mr Genta with this 6 sided version that he rapidly put on the side.
But both Mrs Genta and Sotheby’s had no idea what some of these lots could fetch and following the extreme positive trend witnessed on the auction scene over the last couple of years, well this phenomenon has been spectacularly witnessed again.
The original Royal Oak design got sold for a wobbling 550’000 Swiss Francs plus tax and premium, the hexagonal version went for a 150’000.- and we can speculate without too much risk that the original design will be seen at the AP Musée Atelier in the near future, I mean they didn’t really have the option, but other lots attained some fair pricing and just as a reminder some other batches of such paintings will soon be made available in the online auctions organised by Sotheby’s and this triggers some other auction action until the main sales taking place in early May in Geneva and till then we will for instance highlight some of the lots brought forward in a rose gold thematic auction by Ineichen, a sale taking place on the 12th of March, so yes plenty going on and coming back to the May auctions, well will have a dedicated Royal Oak auction with 50 special lots organised by Phillips and another big one will be the sale of Gerald Genta’s personal Royal Oak, this one being sold by Sotheby’s.
Jean-Claude Biver of the creation of his very own brand.
This is something which had been in the rumour mill for quite a while, but now it’s official and we are really at a very early stage of this endeavour and just to let you know, but we will soon meet Mr Biver during the Geneva watch week to talk about it with him and his son, also part of the project. I mean we know the marketing talent of the man, but what’s his goal and how will it be expressed, well this is what we will try to uncover.
A new Baume & Mercier watch done as a tribute to French artist Pierre Soulage with a limited to 102 pieces special Hampton coming naturally if a full black attire with this textured dial and though I haven’t seen it in real, well it looks quite interesting.
Next product and I know we’re not talking mechanical watch with the freshly launched Casquette 2 by Girard Perregaux, but following last year’s participation at Only Watch with a Bamford version, it’s not too much of a surprise that GP followed up on this one as it has a bit of iconic status. Instead of coming in a carbon case for the charity auction, this limited to 820 pieces comes in a black titanium and ceramic case and compared to the original model, this LED piece now features day and month indication, has a second-time zone and even a stopwatch, so yes, we’re talking serious and heavy electronics. Ok, joke aside, this piece is indeed really cool, but coming at 4’500 Swiss Francs.
Next timepiece and what an original and even playful travel watch introduced by German brand Moritz Grossman with the Universalzeit.
I mean I have never seen anything like it and a very different way of presenting some sort of world timer as you have your local time indicated traditionally with central hour, minute and seconds hands but then on the dial and through the world map, you will find another six different time zones and they all jump at the same time thanks to a disk where all these indications are placed, must have been a funny thing to calculate to get this right!
This watch comes in a steel 44.5mm case and movement and finishing are always top class with Moritz Grossmann.
And talking about world timer and to satisfy the curiosity of some of you regarding what I have on the wrist, well this is the Chinese Ciga Design Blue Planet, the watch that won last year’s edition of the GPHG in the Challenge category, meaning watches under 3’500.- Swiss Francs and actually this watch retails for a bit less than 2’000 USD. So it was the first time a Chinese watch brand won a prize and this piece is quite original.
The last timepiece with Laurent Ferrier who unveiled a new sportier model with the Sport Auto coming in a 41.5mm titanium case with titanium integrated bracelet.
This first version comes with a blue dial with small seconds at 6 o’clock and the LF270.00 movement is powered by a micro-rotor, beats at 4Hz and holds 72 hours of power reserve. I personally like these teardrop indexes,
I also like this date window and how they gave it some extra depth and I think there is an interesting and subtle mix of modern and a bit old school design, for instance when you look at the crown.