It’s been a tough two years for the Swiss watch industry. In mid-2015, it started seeing its exports drop, a downturn that would end up lasting 25 months. Companies responded by cutting production, introducing fewer new models — especially on the men’s side — and focusing its attention on limited-edition ladies’ watches as the showpieces of the 2017 trade fairs. Men’s watches took a turn toward minimalist, vintage styles, with fewer complications and slimmer profiles. This made sense from both a production and a price point of view, given the economic climate. Ladies’ timepieces, in contrast, seemed even more decorated than usual, and diamonds were the value-adding material of choice.
More than just a pretty face
With the dearth of new products for men this year, ladies’ watches have been on the rise. Jewelry watches have made a particularly strong showing, for two main reasons.
One, diamonds add intrinsic value to a watch in a way that extra functions or desirable designs often don’t. Just as gold can command a price based directly on value, a diamond watch feels like more of an investment. Another force driving the popularity of women’s luxury timepieces is the growing appreciation for watchmaking’s
métiers d’art, including gem-setting. Diamond-setting in watches has moved well beyond the practice of simply lining up the stones in a row along the bezel or placing them as markers. Watch companies are developing more creative placement of diamonds, and some have even pioneered new settings.
Cartier created a “fur setting” for its High Jewelry Panther watch, which it introduced earlier this year, placing the diamonds in a bezel shaped like a honeycomb lattice made of hair-thin gold wires to evoke a panther’s fur. Patek Philippe introduced the “flamme” setting, in which a portion of the metal around the diamond is cut out, allowing more light to penetrate and therefore reflect out through the table. The technique solves a common problem with putting diamonds in watches: They are usually set into the metal, with the pavilions closed off to light.
Watch designers are even using “important” diamonds now, a practice normally reserved for fine jewelry. Chopard created the six-piece Garden of Kalahari jewelry collection this year, for example, using diamonds cut from the 342-carat Queen of Kalahari diamond. One of those pieces is a jewelry watch set with 55 carats of diamonds, including two D-flawless stones — one pear-shaped, and the other round brilliant.
Jewelry watches are a draw for consumers because they straddle both genres, combining mechanics with aesthetics. They even tend to have mechanical movements now, rather than quartz, and watchmakers like to display and decorate them. Audemars Piguet’s Millenary collection, for example, is designed to serve as a showcase for watchmaking’s decorative arts, while also exuding a technical flair with its partially openworked dial. Three new 2018 models, which the company plans to introduce in January at the Salon International de la Haute Horlogerie, incorporate not only diamonds, but also a hammered gold finish and a hand-woven gold bracelet, using techniques borrowed from the jeweler’s bench.
Vintage quality over quantity
With five months of positive Swiss watch export numbers as of November, a recovery in the industry is well under way. However, the longtime slump meant that by 2017, fewer new models and almost no new collections were coming from the major brands. Still, this paring-down did not translate to sub-par movements or materials; on the contrary, there is great value and collector’s potential in the modern vintage models introduced over the past two years, because they combine iconic design codes with new-generation components.
There have been vast technical advances over the past decade in watchmaking — such as silicium movement components, ceramic ball bearings and titanium bridges — and companies are starting to apply these materials and technologies to volume-production mechanical watches, even at the entry level. This makes such pieces especially appealing to millennials, who demand quality but want a reasonable price. Meanwhile, companies such as Rolex, Omega and Breitling have extended their warranties to five years, compared to the two-year standard, in recognition of the newer watches’ improved performance.
As we creep into recovery, the tide is turning once again to upmarket pieces. In 2018, expect to see more high complications and some higher price points, albeit in short production runs. Among the previews of watches set to debut in January at the Salon International de la Haute Horlogerie in Geneva, there are four tourbillons: from Cartier, Audemars Piguet, Parmigiani Fleurier and Ulysse Nardin. Montblanc is introducing several new chronographs, and IWC is introducing a limited-edition Jump Hour with lacquer dial to celebrate its 150th anniversary. That impressive number alone is a reminder that luxury watch companies are in this for the long game, through recessions, depressions and changes in technology.
Image: Parmigiani parmigiani.comArticle from the Rapaport Magazine - January 2018. To subscribe click here.