The second Belles Montres international prestige watch fair, held at the Carrousel du Louvre in Paris in November this year, boasted 60 exhibitors compared with the previous edition’s 42. Over 10,000 visitors, compared with 7,500 in 2007, came to admire the watches on display. Rendezvous next year.
Sub-Saharan Africa represents a “micro” market for the Swiss watchmaking industry. And the repercussions of the global financial crisis on the economies of African countries will do nothing to reverse this trend. However, there is a marked preference in African countries for shiny timepieces, even though they may be fake…
A peregrination across Asia is also an opportunity to reflect on time, and the demands it makes on our lives. Three snapshots of three chance encounters with people for whom time is… something else.
Peter Braun - On the first weekend of November, the inhabitants of Munich flocked to the Praterinsel in the middle of the Bavarian metropolis for an unmissable experience: the Munich Time Watch Fair. Over 50 well-known watch brands showcased their current collections in a relaxed atmosphere.
James Bourne - The Grand Prix de l’Horlogerie de Genève has decided to accompany watchmakers on their main export markets. Thus, Singapore is the first city to accommodate some 70 watches in this 2008 competition. Jaeger-LeCoultre was awarded the top prize for its Reverso Gyrotourbillon II.
Alexey Tarkhanov - James Bond doesn’t pull in the punters in Russia. So which stars are best-suited to wearing watchmakers’ colours here? The answer is plain to see: our high-flying politicians.
Paloma Recio - Little by little, fashion brands realised that their watches had to live up to the same standards of quality and prestige as the haute couture collections they paraded up and down catwalks around the world. To achieve this, they had to abandon the idea of the watch as a mere accessory and give it an identity of its own.
Michael Balfour - Plans are well under way for the establishment of an English chronometer test certificate. And its qualifying standard is to be higher than the Swiss COSC and German equivalents. Watchmaking in England, a new sotry.
Rafael Sabat - Mexico is fertile ground for Fine Watches and Fine Jewelry. As anyone who has visited the early Mesoamerican calendars built all over the plateau will tell you, this is an ancient and solid tradition.
Elena Serebryanskaya - A girl who is sitting on a proboscis of a mosquito, a camalcade in a needle eye, a working watch in an eye of a dragonfly… all these unusual things are not freaks of imagination or fantastic. The exquisite technical creations belong to a Ukrainian master of microminiatures Mykola Syadristy.