Rolex, Patek Philippe, Chanel, Chopard and Tudor have just announced leaving Baselworld to create a new watch show in Geneva with the Fondation de la Haute Horlogerie’s Watches & Wonders. The show will be held in early April 2021 at Geneva’s Palexpo. This is going to be one interesting year full of new thoughts and ideas. Get out the popcorn!
With the two big Swiss fairs’ very existences hanging in the precipice thanks to past mistakes and the global pandemic COVID-19, and with no inkling of a clear way forward, Elizabeth Doerr looks at the turbulent first three months of 2020 and shares how brand managers are reacting to the ‘new normal.’
“Dear Mr. Babin, I’m speaking as a fan, but you are sure making it difficult. It gives me no pleasure to take shots at you like this, but if you keep standing up and saying these things, I’ll keep rebutting you,” Ian Skellern begins his second open letter on this subject . . .
Despite feeling that Geneva Watch Days was wrong, hope, stupidity, and self-interest prevailed enough to cause Ian Skellern to hold off on canceling his accommodation in Geneva previously booked for the now-canceled Watches & Wonders 2020. He was hoping organizing brand Bulgari would cancel the event first and take the decision and uncertainty out of his hands. But it didn’t. Now’s the (well-overdue) time to say bye-bye to Geneva Watch Days 2020 in his opinion.
Ian Skellern’s feelings regarding the rapid series of announcements of watch events like the cancellation of Watches & Wonders and Baselworld as well as the full-steam-ahead project Geneva Watch Days have been equally quickly undulating: from initially being enthusiastically for, Ian ended feeling against Geneva Watch Days. Why put anyone’s health at risk, especially with perhaps little in return but a few photos and a persistent cough? But it is a tough call.
The news broke like a hurricane on the morning of February 27, 2020: Watches & Wonders (formerly SIHH) has been canceled for 2020. In the words of Hublot CEO Ricardo Guadalupe, “The future of the fairs is already [hanging] in the balance – to cancel them [this year] is really bad news for them, and for Baselworld in particular.” Read on for more of his opinion.
Australia is burning up, so Time & Tide founder Andrew McUtchen has organized the Watch & Act charity auction. Going live on Monday, January 20, 2020 at 10:00 am AEST, the online auction is set to raise money for bushfire victims and wildlife by auctioning special watches.
The last third of 2019 was a busy time for GaryG, In addition to professional activities, keeping up with other pastimes, and traveling with his wife, he had the wonderful opportunity to attend a bunch of watch-related events around the globe. Here he shares what he’s dome and what he’s learned along the way.
If the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève awards the horological Oscars, then the more cerebral Gaïa might be considered the horological Nobel Prize. And the three prize winners for 2019 are . . .
Dubai Watch Week (DWW) is like no other fair. There is no obvious commercial aspect to the event, and watches (and watchmakers) are there for the public’s appreciation rather than that of retailers and distributors (like Baselworld and the SIHH). Here Elizabeth Doerr takes a look at what makes DWW so special based on a conversation with the fair’s director general Hind Seddiqi.