Luxury Watch Trends: Men's Watches, SIHH 2011

It’s a conversational trope that barely deserves an answer these days (“Of course they do,” you hear yourself saying, “but you’ve also declared an apparent fixation on technology for technology’s sake – never a good look...”) but it still requires answering. Well, SIHH certainly provided one or two. Timepieces, it seemed to be saying over its four days, endless presentations and periodic back rubs (yes a spa was installed this year, for the greater comfort of its more atrophied attendees) are merely the starting point, a staging post if you will, towards a degree of design, a level of construction and a pursuit of aesthetic athleticism hitherto unimagined in the realm of human ingenuity.

Take, for instance, Cartier’s glorious Rotonde de Cartier Astroregulateur, a watch every bit as technologically intrepid (Cartier holds four separate patents on its canny replacement of the tourbillon with another means of eliminating the effects of gravity on its movement) as it is aesthetically pleasing. Granted, some of the more “boutique” brands still insist that complexity must come with slightly ageing symbols of fighter-jet-style utility (pewter grey titanium, a dearth of glitz, let alone bling) but the big players clearly wish to continue marrying the mind (improved complications; innovative ideas) to the heart’s insatiable desire for beauty.

There’s certainly a striving for uniqueness in such a union: Van Cleef & Arpel unveilled its Poetic Complication “Five Weeks In a Balloon”, inspired by the Jules Verne novel “Les Voyages Extraordinaires” with a glorious dial pieced together with a mosaic of enamel and mother of pearl set in a white gold case and surrounded, if desired, surrounded with diamonds. Far from dying out, it seems, such stratospheric levels of craftsmanship are actually improving, thanks to young, dedicated hands and the patronage of brands that demand art as much as science of their products – the “Five Weeks In a Balloon” watch is powered by a Jaeger-LeCoultre movement. [Jaeger Le-Coultre is available in TIME²'s concession in Selfridges]

Talking of whom, reviving old styles isn’t really pertinent when one of the oldest is still in continuous production and JLC’s 80th anniversary model for its Reverso range might so easily have been a blink-and-you-miss-it missed opportunity given the unwavering design cues of the original. But the Grande Reverso Ultra Thin Tribute to 1931 – besides reflecting the other key trend of the year for superslim timepieces – manages to combine the best of modern watchmaking with a picture-perfect reflection of the model’s very beginnings. An art deco classic that retains all its “art deco-ness” and still looks unutterably modern and, more importantly desirable, it’s almost unheard-of in any other field manufacturing, and remains a very good reason never to give into the iPhone....

Bill Prince is deputy editor of British GQ

For more luxury watches, visit TIME2.co.uk. More news from SIHH 2011