You’ll forgive me, but these days the show “season” seems to run pretty much year-round. SIHH in January and Basel in the spring, and then before you know it we’re into Watches and Wonders (Hong Kong), Salon QP (London), SIAR (Mexico) and Belle Montres (Paris).
Entering Mentink & Roest’s booth, one is not only immediately enchanted by the lovely chimes and ticks of timepieces that are hundreds of years old. Here at this booth planted squarely within The European Fine Art Fair (TEFAF) held in Maastricht, Holland, the senses are also barraged by the conversations taking place among the various connoisseurs, collectors and dealers of these pieces, . . .
While at times our online magazine seems to have already been active for years (in a good way), Quill & Pad only launched just over two months ago. And thanks to all of you it has even more successful than we ever imagined. And we were aiming high!
Thanks to your support Quill & Pad has had a fantastic first month. To celebrate this momentous moment, we are having a party…a launch party! And you are invited.
Register to receive regular updates before March 3 and you will have a chance to win some serious “party favors”!
This coming Monday will be the start of the 2015 edition of the SIHH (Salon International de la Haute Horlogerie) in Geneva, although our coverage will begin on the weekend with a few of the independent brands. To get you in the SIHH mood, here’s another look at our recap of last year’s exhibition.
Did you ever wonder what it sounds like when journalists get together among themselves and chat about impressions from a week-long watch fair? If so, wonder no more because here we’re providing you with the opportunity to listen in on some private conversations between well-known tastemakers of both the print and online worlds right here at Quill & Pad.
Welcome to our post-SIHH 2014 discussion in which we bring you some of the best and most educated opinions in our industry on the fair, the mood and the watches we saw right here!
Take a 360° tour of the 2014 SIHH! As the first big watch exhibition of the year, the annual SIHH (Salon International de la Haute Horlogerie) in Geneva attracts plenty of interest. However, as a very restricted, invitation-only trade show, it is difficult for the watch-loving public to get an idea of what the SIHH really looks like.
While it seems that “métiers d’art” could be considered a catchword, trend or even buzz phrase in modern high-end watchmaking, the reality is that when luxury brands take the time, energy, and cost to create these unique elements, it results in some of the most magnificent artwork available in horology today.
This year’s SIHH is full of complicated revelations. And, even more surprisingly, we have found at least five perpetual calendars at the fair, all of which are very different in approach, design and even price.
The year 2013 was a stellar moment for the rare grand complication, as the SIHH quickly demonstrated. Not only did A. Lange & Söhne present its oeuvre, but to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the sporty, contemporary Royal Oak Offshore, Audemars Piguet also introduced one of these complex masterpieces.
This automatic timepiece includes three of the traditional complications that a watch earning the right to this title should include: minute repeater, perpetual calendar, and (split-seconds) chronograph. The latter, in fact, has most unusually been included as a rattrapante in all of the brand’s grand complications since 1882. Though throughout its long history Audemars Piguet has focused on the traditional side of horology; the advent of the evergreen Royal Oak – the first luxury sports watch – in 1972 added a distinctly sporty side to this manufacture’s classic offerings.