Ceramic, bronze and flower petals, were the highlights amongst new material trends, at the Salon Internationale de la Haute Horlogerie 2014, find the dnaofluxury team at SIHH, Geneva
AUDEMARS PIGUET
Royal Oak Concept GMT Tourbillon
This timepiece, sculpted in a titanium case, has a white ceramic bezel framing the design of the tourbillion carriage and a second GMT time-zone display inside. The hourglass-shaped bridge is enlivened by the double symmetry of the tourbillon bridges and GMT display. This Royal Oak Concept GMT Tourbillon has an ultra-light, ultra-resistant titanium case and features a white ceramic bezel, crown and pushpieces, all heightening the contrast with the titanium case middle. In a first, ceramic has been incorporated into the movement itself.
IWC
Aquatimer Chronograph edition 'Expedition Charles Darwin'
This bronze model, inspired by the ship made famous by Charles Darwin's expedition, has bronze tones reiterated in the luminescent coating on the hands, indices and the quarter-hour scale on the internal/external rotating bezel. A dynamic contrast is provided by the matte black rubber coating on the crown and push-buttons.
CARTIER
Ballon Bleu Floral-Marquetry Parrot
Cartier introduced a new craft in watchmaking—floral marquetry, which adorns and enlivens the dial of the Ballon Bleu de Cartier watch. This creation with a parrot motif and a bracelet in white alligator skin belongs to a limited edition of 20 pieces. Blue, and orange-yellow plumage, a deep black beak, an emerald green eye and sparkling white diamonds in the background of the dial and on the crown—it is an explosion of colours. The petals are gathered and coloured. Each petal is then stuck onto a thin piece of wood and cut into the desired shape. Thus transformed, they become feathers and plumage.
HONCHOS SPEAK
Oliviero Bottinelli
Managing Director, Asia, Audemars Piguet
Indians have a Discerning Eye for Luxury
Back in time
Our brand, which has a history of making beautiful watches, originates in Le Brassus, Switzerland. Audemars Piguet is one of the best names in the world of fine watchmaking, today. Audemars Piguet, for me, is the youngest of the four dinosaurs in the Swiss watch industry but is the youngest even among them.
Luxury of time
I would like to change time. We need more time to appreciate all the beautiful creations of the luxury industry. Time is luxury; one should cherish time with family, as well.
On India
Indians have a discerning eye for all things beautiful—jewellery, clothes, cars...Audemars Piguet is definitely one of them. But high taxation in India and the complex duty structure for importing watches restricts Indian consumers from appreciating the beauty of our brand's creations. Red tapism, in fact, makes it difficult to bring our masterpieces to India. I look forward to having our boutiques in India to showcase our masterpieces in the Audemars Piguet environment.
Christian Knoop
Creative Director, IWC
Evolution and Change is the Key
Back in time
Beauty, design and creativity have a great role in luxury. In our 140-year history, we have built an impressive collection of designs and pieces, which have become iconic to the brand. We collaborated with watch designers like Gerald Genta in the early '70s for the Ingenuier line, and later with Alexendra Porsche who designed the Porsche 911 and created the Aquatimer in 1982.
On Innovation
I am proud of the entire collection at SIHH 2014, which includes the first bronze-cased watch from IWC. We have a similar approach to design elements in our watches as that of automobiles, which are designed by automobile designers. Prior to designing a new product, our designers consider the DNA of the historic product, and carefully evolve this with some innovative elements. The ultimate goal is to design a product that is perceived as a true IWC product. We, as designers, need to be in a process of continuous evolution and adapt to change. We work at least two to four years ahead of the collection release. If you look too much at the current trends and design watches you will not be able to survive in the future.
In the next dnaofluxury edition, watch out for the Moonphase trend.
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