Bill Prince

A few years ago, the watch industry was gripped in a ‘build it and they will come’ moment. In their interpretation of that famous edict, they reckoned ‘if we could, we should’ – which led to a daredevil carousel involving ever larger watch faces, previously unheard-of case materials and ever more dizzying reinterpretations of the analogue dial that resulted in some of the hardest-to-read timepieces ever produced.

BaselWorld closed its doors last week, and its organisers will be comforting themselves with the thought that the nine-day exhibition has shown one of the most remarkable comebacks of any industry ever.

How many times have you raised your eyes to the heavens and mentally checklisted tomorrow’s tasks as yet another sub-thirtysomething with an irregular haircut points out, in the naif’s attempt at a cutting tone, that they don’t themselves actually see the need for a watch, given that every last technological gizmo on their person gives a horological read-out?

First the good news: the Swiss watch industry is back, back selling watches, back to thinking ahead towards new technologies and back to reaffirming what it perhaps it does best of all: exploring its extraordinary legacy with retro-vintage pieces that combine the best of old and new.