Carol Besler’s Top 10 Watches from Watches and Wonders 2024
by Carol Besler
So many watches, so little time and space. It’s almost impossible to pick only 10 standouts from among the hundreds of introductions at Watches and Wonders, but here are 10 that strike me as noteworthy.
Rolex 1908 Platinum
Rolex gets more hits than any other word on any platform, so this must seem like an obvious, cliched choice, but it’s just such a great watch: that gorgeous rice-grained guilloché dial, combined with the ice blue Rolex uses for platinum pieces.
Rolex 1908 Platinum (photo courtesy Carol Besler)
The design – including the slim bezel with discreet fluting only on the lower edge, and the long, needle-thin indexes and circle-tipped hour hand – is a welcome departure from the Rolex sport-watch aesthetic.
The case is a gender-neutral 39 mm, and the movement is of course a Superlative Chronometer.
The price is ‘only’ $30,900, an affordable alternative to equivalent platinum dress watches from Vacheron Constantin and Chopard.
For more information, please visit www.rolex.com/watches/1908/m52506-0002
Cartier Tortue Monopoussoir Chronograph
The Tortue has been revisited not just aesthetically but technically. Cartier made a new movement that, for the first time since the Tortue was introduced in 1912 conforms to the shape of the case (including the subsequent 1928 chronograph and the 1998 edition Cartier CPCP).
Cartier Tortue Monopoussoir Chronograph
It’s now slimmer, which is good for smaller wrists. Otherwise, it has the same features as the icon we know and love: blued-steel apple-shaped hands, a hollowed central seconds hand, Roman numerals and a railroad chapter ring.
The chrono is $51,000 in yellow gold (vintage beauty) or $59,000 in platinum.
TAG Heuer Monaco Split Seconds
Given that TAG Heuer is all about sports timing, it’s hard to believe it is just introduced it’s first ever split-seconds chronograph movement in a wristwatch.
TAG Heuer Monaco Split Seconds
I caught up with Carol Forestier-Kasapi, the brand’s movement director, at Watches and Wonders, who said, “In the company archives, we found an advertisement from 135 years ago for a split-seconds chronograph, so it has always been a big part of TAG Heuer’s heritage, but in all the years since then, the maison never recreated a split-seconds movement on a wristwatch – always on a pocket watch – until now.”
The caliber TH81-00 was developed with Vaucher Manufacture Fleurier and is made of in titanium (as is the case). It’s also just a really cool looking watch, if a bit up-market for TAG Heuer, at $138,000.
For more information, please visit www.tagheuer.com/us/en/timepieces/collections/tag-heuer-monaco/41-mm-th81-00/CBW2182.FC8339.html
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Krayon Anywhere for Jean Todt
Krayon’s watchmaker Rémi Maillat gets a lot of attention for his mechanically innovative anywhere-on-the-planet sunrise/sunset watches. But the dials deserve equal praise. In his suite at the Beau Rivage during Watches & Wonders, Maillat was showing the bespoke version he designed for motorsport titan Jean Todt.
Krayon Anywhere for Jean Todt (photo courtesy Carol Besler)
The dial is a reimagining of Van Gogh’s famous painting “The Starry Night,” using miniature painting that looks more like tesserae mosaics or champlevé enameling. The artisan (whom Maillat declines to name) begins by carving tiny recesses into the metal plate, and then carefully deposits dabs of each color, in the form of lacquer, by hand, layer by layer, until the desired shades emerge.
Price undisclosed.
For more information, please visit www.krayon.ch/anywhere/ref-c030-5b.php?lang=en#anywhere-jean-todt
Chanel Haute Horlogerie Pink Edition Boy-Friend
Chanel’s Watches and Wonders collection this year was a master class in branding. The couture-themed collection included motifs of the trade: scissors, thimbles, pin cushions, judy models; tape measures; and of course pink quilted straps in a nod to the maison’s handbags, plus effigies of Mademoiselle Coco herself.
Chanel Haute Horlogerie Pink Edition Boy-Friend
It might have seemed gimmicky had it not been presented in the context of high watchmaking: elite movements, expert gemsetting, hand finishing; 18k gold or ceramic cases.
The Boy-Friend Skeleton (openworked caliber 3), with its pink sapphire bezel and pinked bridges, is a great example of the elegant flamboyance of this brand and its ability to reach an upscale fashion audience without horological compromise.
Price on request.
Patek Philippe Rare Handcrafts
It’s hard to choose a favorite among the 80 dome clocks, pocket watches and wristwatches in Patek Philippe’s Rare Handcrafts collection. The vibrancy of the enamel work is so brilliantly, perfectly, artfully executed, all with such different narratives and themes that it’s hard to choose. Is it the surfer watch?
Patek Philippe Rare Handcrafts 2024: ‘Morning on the Beach’ and ‘Portrait of a White Egret’
The flower/bird dome clock? The brilliantly whimsical billiards pocket watch (with a stand designed as two pool cues) or the bear catching a fish in wood marquetry?
I have to name the entire collection as a collective favorite, and live in envy of the lucky top clients who get to call dibs on them. Prices vary, but if you have to ask …
For more information, please visit www.patek.com/en/collection/rare-handcrafts
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Vacheron Constantin Les Cabinotiers Berkley
Vacheron Constantin has had the luck of scoring a client that is a watch collector on the level of famous rivals Henry Graves Jr. and James Packard, who took Patek Philippe to task with their horological commissions in the 1930s. His name is William Robert Berkley, who it turns out was the customer for Vacheron’s bespoke Les Cabinotiers Ref. 57260.
Vacheron Constantin Les Cabinotiers Berkley
That watch held the record as the world’s most complicated watch until Berkley challenged the company to figure out how to make a Chinese perpetual calendar – hitherto deemed impossible because the calendar’s combination of lunar and solar cycles are not in perpetual synchronicity. The watch, with 63 complications, is aggressively large, yet somehow elegant.
Priceless.
For more information, please visit www.vacheron-constantin.com/us/en/maison/craftsmanship/cabinotiers/berkley-grand-complication.html
IWC Portugieser Eternal Calendar
Purists will argue that it is impossible to produce a real perpetual calendar, that it’s all just a grand estimate anyway, but isn’t it a fantastic flex to have created a watch with a moonphase display that is accurate to one day in 45 million years? IWC is renowned for its Kurt Klaus-designed perpetual calendars, including the Da Vinci Chronograph Perpetual Calendar, with its four-digit year indicator, (a hit when 1999 became 2000, because all four windows changed at once).
IWC Portugieser Eternal Calendar
The Eternal Calendar also has this quirky element. I wonder if anyone will be around to see it all move in 2999? IWC says the Eternal Calendar will show the correct length of every month, year, and century, until at least the year 3999. Will we even be around that long? Answer unknown.
Price on request.
For more information, please visit www.iwc.com/us/en/watch-collections/portugieser/iw505701-portugieser-eternal-calendar.html
Grand Seiko Manual Wound Evolution 9 Hi-Beat 9S Limited Edition Gold
Grand Seiko’s high-beat caliber 9S series now has a long-awaited manual-wound movement, caliber 9SA4, following up on 2020’s automatic 9SA5 and last year’s Tentagraph caliber 9SC5 chronograph. Few realize that Seiko competed and frequently beat out Swiss watchmakers in mid-century Observatory Chronometer competitions – with mechanical, not quartz, movements.
Grand Seiko Manual Wound Evolution 9 Hi-Beat 9S Limited Edition Gold
Now Grand Seiko continues compete head to head, with this elite, high-frequency, dual-impulse escapement, with an 80-hour power reserve and a high finish. If that doesn’t get you, the gold version with birch-bark inspired dial (and no cluttery date window) should be a clincher.
Price $45,000.
For more information, please visit www.grand-seiko.com/us-en/collections/slgw002j
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Hermès Cut
In an era of archival revisits, it’s refreshing to see a brand new full collection. It takes courage. Look at the abuse Audemars Piguet endured when it launched the Code 11.59. The Hermès Cut is as much a break from the brand’s decorative metiers pieces and quirky L’Heure De La Lune complications as Audemars Piguet’s 11.59 was from the Royal Oak.
Hermès Cut (photo courtesy Carol Besler)
It’s a great design, with a shaped case –rounded but cut off at the sides, leaving angular edges and a tonneau look; a distinct numeral font, with lume; an unusual crown position at 1:30; an integrated bracelet/strap; and in-house movement (H1912). It maxes out at 36mm now, but could easily be adapted to larger sizes.
Many versions (it’s already a true full collection), starting at $6,725.
For more information, please visit www.hermes.com/us/en/content/328124-hermes-cut-watches/
You might also enjoy:
Grand Seiko: Looking at What Makes the Brand so Special – And Grand Seiko is Definitely Special!
Hermès Watches: Why they are Worth Seriously Considering
Krayon Anywhere: A Long Overdue Love Letter to a Practical Sunrise-Sunset Masterpiece
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