BaselWorld Luxury Report – GQ Deputy Editor Writes For TIME², Part I

This year its vast halls were awash with classically orientated timepieces, valuable heritage pieces and the occasional all-out retro item that confirmed that when forced to consider what the customer really wants, Swiss watchmakers got it right quite a few years ago and aren’t afraid to go back to that time to re-establish the fact.

Zenith, a brand that exposed perhaps the highpoint of the industry’s brush with over-indulgence has stepped away its extreme-in-every-way Defy range and reappeared with an old name upon a band new model; the Captain range represents powered by the brand’s iconic Elite and El Primero movements. Gratifyingly the El Primero’s famous Flyback function has returned, in its new Stratos model. [Zenith is available at TIME²'s Selfridges concession.]

Breitling’s already-announced Transocean recognises the return to Sixties and Seventies –inspired chronographs, but maintains what’s become a very successful sideline in timepieces for Bentley Motor Cars, this year celebrating one of the original ‘Bentley Boys’, Woolf Barnato 3 times winner of the Le Mans 24-hour race between 1928-30. [Breitling is sold in TIME²'s Selfridges concession.]

Other brands to look back: Glaschutte with their imaginative Panorama Date, re-establishing the TV dials of the early Seventies as a modernist take on the more traditional ‘tonneau’ (barrel) cases; next year’s Olympics timekeeper, Omega has produced the brilliantly understated ‘Seamaster 1948’ in a chic and sublimely wearable 39mm case size to celebrate the last time the Olympics were held in London; Hamilton looks forward to its 120th anniversary next year with a relaunch of the 1960s Thin-O-Matic style complete with original Hamilton logo.

And even Hublot, a brand that nearly ‘owned’ the early Noughties with just one piece, the Big Bang, showed a step back to when its early porthole pieces were as small as 38mm in diameter but always on the rubber strap (the first brand to bring this to the quality end of the market). [Hublot is available in TIME²'s Selfridges concession.]

But just in case you were wondering where all the real innovation went don’t worry: Harry Winston was on hand with its eleventh Opus edition, designed by Denis Giguet with a display that quite literally defies description (at least in a blog of this length).

Hermes, meanwhile, has improved on the French concept of the ‘stolen hour’ by equipping an Arceau model with a movement that simply stops for however long you wish your ‘release from time’ to last, before re-establishing the correct time.

Finally, TAG Heuer, who in deference to their dual tasks of displaying innovation alongside its design, produced the Flying 1000, a mechanical chronograph capable of timing to 1000th of a second. This astonishing (if currently short-lived – the ‘Proof of concept’ model shown produces only enough power to run the wildly spinning 1,000th of a second hand for around 100 seconds) is a testament to the brand’s adopting some bold new engineering philosophies: chief among them a decision to replace prototyping with computer modelling. Expect future innovations (the 100th of second Mikrotimer was only launched in January) on an ever more frequent basis.

See Basel-11 for more BaselWorld news.

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