It seems fitting that the first in my four-part installment of the new timepiece releases at SIHH would include two brands that arguably presented the most innovative products of the luxury watch tradeshow.
The 25th edition of the Salon International de la Haute Horlogerie was held nearly a month ago in Geneva. It is the first major watch tradeshow of the year and it is also considered by many to be the most exclusive and luxurious of them all. A total of 16 brands exhibit in which 11 are owned by Switzerland-based luxury goods holding company, Compagnie Financière
There is an astonishing amount of creative, technological and innovative diversity in the Swiss watch industry and the products from A. Lange & Söhne, Audemars Piguet, Baume & Mercier and
A. Lange & Söhne
The German watch brand excels at the difficult technical challenge of creating complex high-end complications in a package that expresses simplicity and balance. This year the company’s engineering feat focused on sound with its Zeitwerk Minute Repeater.
Anthony de Haas, head of Product Development at A. Lange & Söhne, kept an audience of watch journalists at full attention as he explained and demonstrated the complexity behind what appeared to be the simple minute repeater of the Zeitwerk. “You hear what you read,” was the key phrase used by de Haas.
Unlike most minute repeaters—which chime at 15-minute intervals, on the hour, and for more advanced systems, on the minute—the Zeitwerk is a decimal minute repeater, which means it strikes at ten-minute intervals and at each minute. In addition, it is a double minute repeater.
The silver and rhodium dial uses a jumping numerals display with the hours on the left and minutes on the right. A seconds subdial is in the lower center and the power reserve indicator is at the top center of the dial. The hammers for the chimes are below the hours and minutes apertures. This layout with no overlap among its key indicators is typical of a Lange.
The striking mechanism is triggered with a pusher. The time is sounded with a low-pitched tone for each hour, an offset double tone for each ten-minute period, and a high-pitched tone for each minute. For example, on the photograph of the watch the time is 7:52. When the pusher is triggered the hammer below the “seven” strikes the low sounding chime seven times. For the “five,” both hammers strike in an offset fashion five times. For the “two,” the high-pitched chime strikes twice. Thus the phrase, “You hear what you read.”
Also notice that a pusher is used instead of a slide, which is typical for a minute repeater, because that is where the power typically derives. For the Zeitwerk the barrel of the caliber L043.5 mechanical movement provides the power. This drains the power of the watch. To manage this, the watch’s power reserve has a little red dot that indicates when the power is running too low to operate the minute repeater.
There’s one more trick to this complication. If the minute repeater is going through its process at the same time a new minute is suppose to appear in the aperture, the jumping mechanism will pause until the minute repeater is finished.
Audemars Piguet
If you are going to create a jewelry watch for women you might as well create something original and exciting. The Diamond Punk is a bold, tough looking timepiece that sneers at traditional, delicate jewelry watches.
A total of 56 white gold pyramids are faceted to create a spiky look reminiscent of the punk rock era. The pyramids are covered in 7,848 snow-set diamonds. If it wasn’t for the tough-looking appearance, it could also be an interpretation of Swiss mountain range. If that’s not enough bling, a sliding cover reveals the 18k white-gold dial, snow-set with an additional 300 diamonds and blued gold hands. It can be worn as a spiky bracelet or a spiky timepiece.
More than 1,400 hours of work by designers, jewelers and gem-setters went into creating this watch. It has a quartz movement but who’s looking under the hood when there’s all that sparkle and attitude on display.
Baume & Mercier
There’s a lot of talk that young people are abandoning watches and jewelry for digital products. Maybe there’s truth to this but that doesn’t mean luxury watch brands aren’t working hard to attract younger people to the design and beauty and, yes, technologically advanced luxury watches.
Baume & Mercier is using its Classima watch collection for men and women to introduce the world of luxury watches to young people. It’s positioning the watch as a way for young people to celebrate their first success, such as graduating college or landing that first job. This is a classic Swiss watch has a low enough entry price to get them interested and enough detail to keep their interest. It’s a dress watch that can be worn causally as well.
The 40 mm Classima Men’s watch in steel or two-tone versions has a redesigned dial with a date aperture at 3 o’clock and the center in line guilloche décor. The hours, minutes and seconds hands are in blued steel or gilt. It’s powered by a modified automatic Sellita movement.
The 36.5 mm-diameter size Classima ladies collection of six watches is available in a quartz or automatic movement. The dial is centered with sunray guilloché that enhances the white or natural mother-of-pearl dials.
Cartier
The French luxury house is the other brand in this group that had a very good SIHH, introducing none other than a very new watch shape, a new crown and new movement in one watch collection for men and women called Clé de Cartier. Clé means “key” in French and the crown’s resemblance to one is unmistakable. The crown to wind the watch isn’t round, instead it’s long with a cabochon sapphire in middle. You don’t pull the crown to wind the watch. Instead, you turn it like a key in a lock and it sort of locks into place after each revolution.
The new shape is a round case surrounded by a rounded cushion shape. The 1847 MC movement was made in house. The brand says a rapid barrel provides additional chronometric stability and the dual-direction winding automatic mechanism provides great durability through a specially designed lever system. There are five models in this collection, two for men and three for women.
