Breil is reaching out to the international design community for inspiration for their collection. They’ve teamed up with designboom for a competition where they will be doling out 3000 euros to each of the top three designs. This isn’t one of those hypothetical design fiction competition. They are seeking an attractive, feasible design, analog, stainless steel that they can manufacture. I can’t wait to see what the competition turns up.
I am at Baselworld again this year. First impressions – despite the positive spin taking place here, you can feel the recession. Just like last year, a number of brand withdrew from exhibiting. Some brands seem to have gone desperate imitating the current trend of colorful rubber watches aka the Toywatch train, most notably Haurex.
Due to the natural disaster in japan, japanese brands like Seiko aren’t able to take in orders because their movement supply has been disrupted and overall, the fair feels a little muted.
Anyway, for the next few days, I will be covering the fair. For a direct link to the coverage, hop over to our Baselworld section.
The new Gucci collection
The Hermes booth emphasized their entry into movement manufacture (link)
Haurex pulls a desperate move and moves into Icewatch territory with their own rubber colorful collection. Each of the watches are packed in a can in imitation of the icewatch packaging that uses a lego motif.
For those who aren’t aware, The Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève is a contest between high-end watch manufacturers at the Geneva Watch Festival. Below are this year’s winners:
Grand Prize of “The Golden Hand”: Greubel Forsey – Double Tourbillon 30° Edition Historique
Prize of the Watch lady: Van Cleef & Arpels – Le Pont des Amoureux
Prize of the Watch Man: Laurent Ferrier – Roller Classic Tourbillon Double Spiral
Prize of the watch design & concept watch: MB & F – Horological Machine No. 4 Thunderbolt
Chopard – High Jewellery Owl Watch
Jewellery Watch Prize: F.P.Journe – CHRONOMETRE A RESONANCE
The cost of the high complication: Seiko – Spring Drive Spacewalk Commemorative Edition
Sports Watch Prize: TAG Heuer – CARRERA Calibre 1887 Chronograph 41mm
Every year, for the past 17 years, the magazine Montres Passion has been awarding the Watch of the year prize by selecting the winners from among forty finalists. These finalists are selected from hundreds of watches that became available in the Swiss market during the previous year and then are further scrutinized by a jury of watchmaking professionals.
For this year, the Octo Bi-Retrograde steel-ceramic by Bulgari was selected as the winner.
The second prize went to the Annual Calendar by Patek Philippe (Ref. 5205) and the third to the Miss Golden Bridge of Corum. The Corum watch also took home the ‘Woman’ Watch Award 2010.
The Special Jury Award went to the Upside Down Number One by Ludovic Ballouard and the winner of an online public voting contest went to the Duomètre à Quantième Lunaire by Jaeger-LeCoultre wins this Award.
Montres Passion is a magazine that has been awarding the Watch of the year prize for the past 15 years. This year, they selected the Altipano by Piaget as the winner.
IWC’s Da Vinci Vintage Automatic
The Da Vinci Vintage Automatic by IWC took second place while Rodolphe’s Instinct Basic 4851 Four Time Zone took third. Ladies had a seperate category -The Ladies’ Watch of the Year award which was won by Piaget’s model “Magic Hour”
Rodolphe’s Instinct Basic 4851 Four Time Zone
The Jury’s also awarded a special prize to Harry Winston’s Diane minute repeater. The watches were short listed from forty finalists which were selected from over a hundred new models launched in Switzerland over a period of a year. The short listed models were also open to votes from the web and the Diamond Flower by Perrelet won the Swiss Public prize.
Sure, On paper it sounds all impressive – World’s largest watch fair has a dedicated section for brands which feature 125 fashion brands from 105 countries blah blah, but the truth is that most of them failed to impress. I did, however, chose to write about a select few:
In the world of watches, Self described modern design entrepreneur Scott Wilson is known for his Presto Digital Bracelets which were a phenomenal success, remain a best seller and have achieved iconic product status. Another of his Nike credits is the Oregon Series Watch Collection, associated with Lance Armstrong’s extraordinary career in competitve cycling.
Wilson now works on design driven projects for major brands through his own MINIMAL design studios which allows him at the same time to work on design-manufacturing projects of his own, such as OOBA, his furniture line. Below are a few quotes from his keynote speech at the Asian Watch Conference held along side the Hong Kong Watch and Clock Fair 2008 that I managed to note:
Scott Wilson's Rhino Sculpture, Kera, was live-auctioned for $14,000. All proceeds went to the World Wildlife Foundation.
His personal view on watches
I feel in love with watches when i went to work for Nike as global creative director. They are more personal and intimate with the user; they can define a person’s identity. I’m intrigued by the scale and intricate detail of the watch design.
I am currently developing some watches under the MNML brand and in the future I would love to create a modern classic watch for a true luxury brand.”
Sure, Baselworld is the premier watch event but the Hong Kong watch and Clock exhibition takes the cake for the largest watch fair with more than 760 exhibitors. Primarily a sourcing event for watch producers, the fair has come a long way in pushing forth the importance of design and branding for its local industry and at this year’s edition, they had American designer Scott Wilson headline the event with a keynote address, featured a record 125 fashion watch brands from 105 companies and showcased local talent via their annual wristwatch design event.
Over the next few days, I’ll be posting about the fair. Keep reading.
Chalk graffiti greeted visitors on Saturday morning through out the hall with messages referring to Blood Diamonds, Tibet and the prostitution of Basel. The best was the mock protest sign that read – Time Kills!
Baselworld was overbooked this year so brands like Casio, Kenzo, H Stern etc. had a seperate tent with an extended lounge for visitors to relax in
The Swarovski section in the extension. The lights on the ground are actually spotlit jewelry
Themed car parked outside for Havana inspired swiss made brand, Cuervo Sobrino.
Btw, the coverage continues till the 10th so stay tuned.
Little known Callanen International may be based in Norwalk, Connecticut but the company is a major part of Timex’s bid to ‘upgrade’ it’s portfolio of brands. Let me reiterate, If you haven’t caught on yet, Callanen is owned by Timex and they make Guess, GC, Marc Ecko Watches, Nautica and now Helix, their new water sport brand. Below are some of the latest models from the company:
