Baselworld 2009

Together with my friend and watchbuddy Robert-Jan, who also runs a watch weblog named Fratellowatches, i’m going to visit Baselworld. Coming friday, saturday and sunday we will have meetings with a lot of watch brands. From Basel we will report about our meetings, the watch and jewelry show in general and lots of other new watches we will hopefully get to see.

Last year more than 100,000 visitors (from 100 countries) and more than 2,000 exhibitor (from 45 countries) where present at Baselworld. And almost 3,000 journalists from 70 countries reported about all the new fair which took place in a 160,000 m2 exhibition area. Ok these are impressive numbers and from what i’ve read and heard from visitors from previous years the show is overwhelming.

Friday and saturday we will have meeting s with  Swatch Group brands Blancpain, Jaquet Droz, Glashütte-Original and Omega. Since i have a weak spot for TAG Heuer i will also visit their stand, although i don’t have a scheduled meeting. I just want to see the new Monaco models i already wrote about! The Independent watchmakers, members of the AHCI, can always count on much appreciation from my side. The work they do only or in very small teams in absolutely impressive and i will visit their stands of course! To name a few i will surely visit:

• Stepan Sarpaneva with his new Korona in RG and WG
• Grönefeld, the new Dutch watchbrand with their impressive GTM6 – Tourbillon Minite Repeater with cathedral gongs
• Urwerk to see their new 103.T Tarantula
• Greubel Forsey … i don’t even know if i will survive that visit, because it’s just too impressive

And many other independent watchmakers like Christiaan van der Klaauw, Vianney Halter, Kari Voutilainen, Maitre du Temps and of course Peter Speake-Marin to see his new in-house developed caliber SM2 in the new MARIN-1! Other brands on my want-to-see-list are Favre-Leuba, Ulysse Nardin to see their Chairman (an mobile phone with automatic power source), Patek Phillipe, Gerald Genta and Chopard and many, many others. And of course i will take a look at the Rolex booth to see their well protected new watches

Jean Dunand Pièce Unique - Shabaka

The first brand we have a meeting with is Jean Dunand. This brand was founded in 2003 by watchmaker Christophe Claret and Thierry Oulevay. Christophe Claret is one of  Switzerland’s leading inventors and constructors of complicated movements for prestige houses. Thierry Oulevay is an expert in watch design and marketing, who gained his experience with the highly respected house Piaget, and engineered the successful relaunch of the Bovet brand from 1995 to 2001 with an award-winning design. Click here to read an interview with mr. Oulevay.

The two men share a fascination for the work of the Swiss-born artist, Jean Dunand (1877–1942), one of the great craftsmen of the Art Deco movement, embodying one of the most style periods in post-Renais-sance times. Mr. Claret and Oulevay decided to name their new brand after thisgreat artist.  For the first Pièce Unique, Christophe Claret to develop the orbiting tourbillon – an idea many in the watch industry considered impossible. And which some now try and fail to copy. After my meeting i will report back with new information

The above photo shows Jean Dunand’s new unique masterpiece, the Shabaka.  In the mean time you can register yourself at the Jean Dunand website for more information.

I guess it’s incredibly difficult to create a new watch. I’m not talking about technical developments, but creating a new design seems hard. And let’s be honest, the margins are there… it can’t be to big, nor too small. A watch must be comfortable on the wrist and an automatic caliber has to provide the time in some way.

Lantern Robot

Azimuth is a brand that has has given me mixed emotion since the first one i saw. Some of their models show a true unique design, other models seem *very* inspired buy other brands. The new Mr Roboto was inspired by the Lantern Robot of the 1950s. Azimuth’s designers show that a timepiece’s practical functionality does not have to take a back seat to aesthetic visual designs. With an ingenious design and user-friendly functions, this good-looker is set to be a head-turner at this year’s Baselworld.

Mr Roboto’s left ‘eye’ is the hour register, right ‘eye’ comes with GMT indication, the nose region joint with the mouth region are the seconds and retrograde minutes placements respectively. When it comes to design Azimuth shows creativity with this model. The movement is a modified ETA 2836-2 movement, placed in a 316L stainless steel case of 43mm wide and 50mm from lug to lug.

Azimuth Mr. Roboto

Now maybe you wonder why the title and first paragraph are not that positive about creativity and Azimuth. Well, the answer is simple. The Mr. Roboto is only one of the new releases of Azimuth this year. Two ther models have such a resemblance to other watches that just can’t be denied.

Azimuth Twin Barrel Tourbillon

I won’t even show the watch that most likely inspired the Azimuth designers. You will probably recognise it and if not just take a look at the website of Urwerk. Azimuth states to be inspired by “the most hard core contemporary super cars that only the most well heeled and affluent watch connoisseurs can appreciate” and they go on with “Azimuth Twin Barrel Tourbillon represents a brand new era of micro-machine making”. I will spare you the rest of the marketing blabla that goes on and on, completely neglecting the fact that this design is a mere rip-off.

Although a 5 day power reserve twin barrel tourbillon could be an excellent achievement for a brand like Azimuth, the press release is hardly paying attention to the movement. At this moment Azimuth only release CAD drawings, so no photos of the actual watch.

Another new release of Azimuth is also heavily inspired by another brand. The new Azimuth SP-1 Mechanique Roulette features a mechanical roulette. This funy feature is also seen on the Franck Muller Las Vegas. But when taking a closer look the seconds hand looks exactly like the Corum Bubble Casino. It must be said that the Azimuth SP-1 has a rectangle case and i wonder how comfortable that wears.

Azimuth Sp-1 Mechanique Roulette

Corum Bubble Casino

For more pre Basel release take a look at Perpetuelle.com

After being offline for a few weeks, i am finally ready to post again. I moved to another house and although i still don’t have an internet connection i can sometimes use a friends connection to read some forums and now post.

One of the few discussions i read and enjoyed reading a lot, is the discussion about Cvstos. Cvstos is in my opinion a brand that has ‘borrowed’a lot of their inspiration from another brand, Richard Mille. While Richard Mille makes extarordinairy pieces and created a unique look for his watches, cases and movements, this relatively new comer has more or less the same look. Just have a look at these photos of Cvstos and the beautiful Richard Mille RM12…

Besides the similarities in design of the case and movement (i am not assuming their are technically of the same level!!!), they also copied another very unique thing of another brand. Bvlgari uses a Roman “V” for “u” and Cvstos now does the same. How original…

We could start a regular discussion about similarities you can find in most brands, even common brands like Rolex and Omega. But in this case the similarities are quite remarkable Personally i don’t mind if brand find some sort of inspiration with eachother. The Omega Seamaster Professional is an iconical dive watch and nobody questions it’s integrety. The same can be said about the Rolex Submariner, but both watches do have some similarities. They are round, have almost the same size, a black dial, large black uni directional bezel with the divetime, crown at the 3 position, date at 3 position, steel bracelet with divers extension clasp and a lot of superluminova on the markers. In the case of Cvstos, the similarities go beyond this in my humble opinion….

If you want to participate in the discussion, than you can go to Watchprosite.com or leave a message here.