Rolex’s colourful Celebration watch and other hot timepieces at Watches & Wonders 2023

GENEVA – The world’s biggest watch fair started on a frenetic note for thousands of exhibitors, retailers and journalists.

They had turned up for Watches & Wonders 2023 at the Palexpo convention centre in Geneva, Switzerland, on Monday morning to find the registration area bursting at the seams. Many missed their morning appointments because it took them nearly two hours to collect their passes for the event, which ends on Sunday.

The chaos and crowds marked a return to normality for the trade fair – formerly known as Salon International de la Haute Horlogerie – which had to go digital for two years because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Although Watches & Wonders 2022 was a physical event, the buzz and boisterousness were slightly muted compared with previous years’. For one thing, the very sizeable contingent of Chinese retailers and journalists was missing because the country was then still under lockdown.

But they are back in 2023 in full force – the number of Chinese journalists alone at the event is about 150.

Compared with 38 last year, Watches & Wonders 2023 boasts 49 exhibiting brands, from the big boys such as Rolex and Patek Philippe to independents, including Arnold & Son and Laurent Ferrier.

Besides taking the unusual step of opening the fair to watch lovers and enthusiasts this weekend, the organisers are also taking the festivities to the streets of Geneva with music performances and guided tours of historical watchmaking landmarks and the Patek Philippe Museum.

Meanwhile, many exhibitors at the fair have pulled out all the stops to reel in the crowds.

Hermes collaborated with artist Clement Vieille to create a scenography depicting the complexity of time at its pavilion.

IWC is displaying a Mercedes-Benz C 111-III, an experimental car from the 1970s, in its booth to promote its latest watch – the Ingenieur Automatic 40, an update of an iconic timepiece designed half a century ago by the legendary Gerald Genta.

Stars have been spotted at the fair too.

Former footballer and Tudor ambassador David Beckham created quite a stir on the first day. So did Hollywood actress and Chopard ambassador Julia Roberts, who appeared at a press conference to announce the maison’s commitment to use 80 per cent recycled steel in all its steel watches.

Meanwhile, Olympic champion freestyle skier Eileen Gu – a Friend of the Brand of IWC – made an appearance at the fair on Wednesday.

The trade fair takes place against an ebullient period for the watch industry. Figures released by the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry showed that Swiss watch exports for 2022 hit a record US$27 billion (S$35.9 billion). November alone logged US$2.6 billion, the best-ever monthly performance for the country’s horological exports.

Of course, the biggest pulls of Watches & Wonders 2023 are the timepieces themselves, with several brands choosing to release updates or new iterations of established classics.

Here are a few of 2023’s ticking marvels.

Rolex Oyster Perpetual Celebration

Two years ago, Rolex did the unexpected by releasing a series of Oyster Perpetual models with brightly coloured dials. Think Tiffany blue (the most popular), hunter green, marigold yellow, coral red and pastel pink. They became highly sought after, prompting many other brands to do the same.

The watchmaker has done it again this year, by dropping a new variation it cheerfully calls Celebration. Riffing on the same design theme, the new model plays with the aforementioned hues, realising them as coloured bubbles on a Tiffany blue background.

The result is a whimsical mood-lifter of a watch, available in three sizes. The 31mm iteration ($7,900) is fitted with the in-house calibre 2233, while the 36mm and 41mm models ($8,450 and $8,900 respectively) house the 3230. All models are water-resistant to 100m.

Tudor Black Bay 54

This is a new take on Tudor’s first dive watch, the Tudor Prince Submariner Ref 7922, which was released in 1954.

A handsome addition to the Black Bay line, this retro charmer looks good and wears even better. Over the last couple of years, the brand has been reducing the sizes of its Black Bay models. It went from the usual 41mm to 39mm for the Black Bay 58 in 2018, and now to 37mm for this iteration.

Except for a few design tweaks (a lollipop second hand replaces the 58’s snowflake-style one), the watch is pretty faithful to the original. It comes with either a rivet-style three-link Oyster bracelet ($5,320) or a rubber strap ($5,030), and is powered by the 4Hz automatic calibre MT5400 movement, which has a 70-hour power reserve and is water-resistant to 200m.

A. Lange & Sohne Odysseus Chronograph

A. Lange & Sohne has made what is best described as a “baller” move at Watches & Wonders 2023. While many brands are dropping multiple novelties (Cartier is introducing more than 85 new models), the German watchmaker is releasing just one.

But what a watch it is. The fifth member of the brand’s newest product family, which made its debut in 2019, the timepiece has what is quite rare in a steel sports watch: a very sophisticated complication. This new self-winding chronograph movement – the L156.1 Datomatic – took six years to develop.

The Teutonic handsomeness of A. Lange & Sohne’s famous dial design is evident here. Both chrono counters have been placed in the middle of the dial, allowing the brand’s iconic outsized day and date displays to be at 3 and 9 o’clock.

The tapered pushers at the side perform dual functions. When the crown is in the screw-down position, they operate the chronograph. But when the crown is pulled out, they are used to correct the date and day of the week.

The 42.5mm timepiece, which has a power reserve of 50 hours, can withstand 12 bars of pressure. It is limited to 100 pieces, with price upon request.

IWC Ingenieur Automatic 40

For a long time now, horological fans have been wondering when IWC will reissue the steel sports watch that the late Gerald Genta – who also designed Audemars Piguet’s Royal Oak and Patek Philippe’s Nautilus – came up with for the brand in 1976. The history of the Ingenieur, which means engineer in French and German, however, goes back two decades earlier, to 1955.

When the Swiss watch industry was nearly decimated by the quartz crisis of the 1970s, IWC roped in Genta to revamp the design and render it in steel instead of gold. He gave it a new bracelet, dial and screwed-on bezel, the last distinguished by five recesses. A modern classic was born.

The wait is now over. Compared with its predecessor, the latest Ingenieur Automatic 40 has a thinner case and a new integrated bracelet. Instead of being screwed in and secured with pins, the five-recess bezel is now secured to the case ring with five polygonal screws.

The dial, which has a grid pattern of perpendicular lines, has also been made more attractive, boasting a shimmering sunburst effect.

There are three steel models ($17,300) with different dial colours – black, white and aqua – and a titanium variant ($21,700) with a grey dial.

Chanel J12 Eclipse Boxed Set

Since its launch in 1999, the J12 has become a horological icon. It is the most popular watch produced by the maison, which is also responsible for models like the Boyfriend and Monsieur.

To celebrate the monochromatic schemes of the famous watch, Chanel has decided to release the J12 Eclipse Boxed Set ($330,750), comprising seven 38mm watches that represent different phases of the moon. The whole set is the horological equivalent of a solar eclipse.

The first watch is all white, and the last, all black. The pieces in between are characterised by a black band of increasing width. The bezel and dial of each ceramic watch are set with baguette-cut ceramic rings. Fitted with the Calibre 12.1 movement certified by the Official Swiss Chronometer Testing Institute, the watches have a 70-hour power reserve.

Hublot Classic Fusion Chronograph Orlinski

Since 2017, Swiss luxury watchmaker Hublot has collaborated with French sculptor Richard Orlinski to release several sculpturally distinctive timepieces.

The collaboration has yielded yet another model which is clean, sporty and marvellously faceted. Boasting a head-turning dodecagonal bezel, the 42mm Classic Fusion Chronograph Orlinski is 12mm thick and super light, thanks to its micro-blasted titanium case.

To counterbalance the architecturally complex case, the rest of the watch is kept simple and classy, with a glossy black dial and polished Dauphine hands.

The heart beating in the watch is the ETA modular-based HUB1153 automatic chronograph movement, which has a power reserve of 42 hours. The model comes either with a rubber bracelet ($20,600) or a full titanium one ($25,700).