Every January for the past couple of decades, Richemont Group brands such as Cartier, Audemars Piguet, Vacheron Constantin, Van Cleef and Arpels, Richard Mille, and Jaeger-LeCoultre jointly host a watch fair in Geneva called the Salon International de la Haute Horlogerie Genève, or SIHH for short. Over the years other brands, like Ulysse Nardin, MB&F, and H. Moser et Cie have join in showcasing their new wares for 2017 to wholesalers, small retailers, and journalists. I toured the show this week, and these were the highlights.
Jaeger-LeCoultre Geophysic Tourbillon Universal Time
This watch from Jaeger-LeCoultre marks the first time a flying tourbillon complication has been included on a world timer. The execution is elegant and feels perfectly natural. The blue portions of the dial, which represent the oceans, are hand-guillochéd in a wave pattern, and 26 global cities are marked on the outer ring. It’s an automatic movement with a pink-gold winding rotor and 48-hour power reserve.
Price: $145,000
Richard Mille RM 50-03 Tourbillon Split Seconds Chronograph Ultralight McLaren F1
Yes, the name is a mouthful. But there is a lot going on in this watch, the first release in a 10-year partnership with racing brand McLaren. Made from carbon, titanium, and a material called graphene, it takes design cues from the McLaren racer, such as the hollow pushers and the rubberized torque reducer on the crown. Richard Mille claims this is the lightest split-second tourbillon watch on the market. (I held it, and it is indeed very light.)
Price: €980,000 ($1.04 million)
Baume et Mercier Clifton Club Shelby Cobra
This new version of Baume et Mercier’s partnership with Shelby is a real looker. The flyback chronograph has a split color dial and red contrast stitching on the strap, both meant to evoke the famous 1964 Shelby Cobra. (There’s also a snakelike nod to the car’s name at the tail end of the chrono hand.) It will be available starting in April, and only 196 will be made.
Price: $7,950
Officine Panerai LAB-ID Luminor 1950 Carbotech 3 Days
This watch is mostly cool because of the material it’s made from: carbotech, which is created through a process of fusing many layers of carbon under high pressure. According to the brand, it’s lighter and more stress-resistant than titanium. The dial is made up of tiny black nanotubes, which absorb light and create the appearance of a black that is even darker than a normal black. (Although it's no Vantablack.) The numbers and hands are unique for Panerai, a brilliant blue Super-LumiNova. Only 50 will be made.
Price: 50,000 CHF ($49,564)
A. Lange & Söhne Tourbograph Perpetual 'Pour Le Mérite'
This watch won’t be on your wrist until fall, but you can order it now, and fans of this brand (with deep pockets) will certainly be lining up for it. Only 50 will be made.
In this image, you can see the perpetual calendar functions, the large tourbillon, the rising moon, and the day of the week. Harder to read, until you hold the watch in your hands, is the rattrapante chronograph hands, which can split the time. (Say you had two people racing: You could time both by stopping one of the hands when your first runner finishes, then the other when the second comes through. The frozen hand can then catch up with its partner.)
Price: €450,000
H. Moser et Cie Swiss Alpine Jumping Chain
Using a movement created by sister brand Hautlence, H.Moser has updated its Swiss Alpine watch (the one that raised eyebrows for its similarity in case shape to the Apple Watch just over a year ago) to showcase more of the horology behind the dial. The jumping hours complication shows the time in Roman numerals that rotate through the display window at top, above the retrograde minutes hand; the organ on the left side of the watch rotates once an hour. The case is white gold, and 10 pieces will be made by the end of the year.
Price: Upon request.
Parmigiani Fleurier Bugatti Aerolithe Performance
Amid a handful of car partnerships this year at SIHH, the ongoing one between Bugatti and Parmigiani begot this handsome automatic watch. There's a large tachymeter that is scaled to track the speed of a car (that's the one with the Bugatti logo on its tail end), plus a small tachymeter near 3 o'clock that is scaled to measure the speed of a human running. (I know this is a conundrum you often run into—having to time a speeding car and a human at the same time.)
Price: 22,900 CHF
Montblanc TimeWalker Chronograph 1000
Montblanc has been making huge strides in its watchmaking in recent years, both at the entry-level price points and with haute horlogerie. They even won a watch of the year award in 2016. This year, the brand came out with the very handsome, sporty TimeWalker series, which will surely be popular with men who like to wear an athletic-looking watch with a suit.
A highlight of that collection is the limited edition TimeWalker Chronograph 1000, which is a chronograph that can mechanically measure time accurately to the 1000th of a second. (This is not the first time this has been done, but it's the first time I've ever been able to play with such a watch.) Using a combination of the standard chronograph hand, the small sub-dials at six o'clock, and the red dial at 12 o'clock, you can put together the time to this extraordinary level of detail.
The movement is manually wound, and you can see the power reserve at 3 o'clock. It goes up to 45 minutes because after that, if the watch is not charged, the accuracy on the timekeeping decreases. There are two patents on the watch mechanism, which has 488 parts; only 18 will be made in titanium.
Price: €175,000
To contact the author of this story: Chris Rovzar in New York at crovzar@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Justin Ocean at jocean1@bloomberg.net.
©2017 Bloomberg L.P.
