Monday, April 4th
The first rendezvous on Monday morning was dedicated to Longines. Walter von Känel, the gregarious President of the brand, gave up some of his valuable time to explain to me the various generations of Longines’ timepieces in his inimitable and entertaining style that combines a deep understanding of his profession with a soupçon of humour.
Daphné Maeder, the Public Relations Manager, then showed me Longines’ new watches in the Evidenza and Master Collections and Les Elegantes. This year sees the fourth edition of Les Elegantes, the re-introduction of watches from the Art Déco period. These replicas are in diamond-set 18 carat white gold with guilloché patterns on the flanks and back. The rhodium-plated dial has a minute track and black Arabic numerals and the watches are equipped with hand-wound mechanical L805 movements that Longines created in the 1970s. They come in Limited Editions of 30 pieces.
The tonneau-shaped Evidenza Collection was launched in 2003 and has enjoyed much success. This year there is a complete range of ladies’ and men’s diamond-set watches which includes a Mini-Size version (quartz movement), diamond-set versions and complications (usually mechanical movements). The Master Collection models are all equipped with mechanical movements and comprise a Big Date Calendar, a Twin-Aperture Date Calendar, a GMT, a Maxi-Size (47.5 mm), Moon Phases, Power Reserve and a Chronograph, which can be seen in the article on Sports Watches in this issue.
A few minutes away in Basel’s old town, Nina Ricci had rented a magnificent apartment to show its latest creations: three new models in the No 11 Collection. One was the Three Graces that portrayed the symbols of joy, love and feminine charm, a chronograph with dial and hands in vibrant colouring and a very feminine watch as either a chronograph or simply hours and minutes with small seconds. With a colourful blue, pink, yellow and green floral dial and white and pink leather or silver thread straps, the watches are exquisitely feminine in appearance. With stainless steel cases, Swiss quartz movements and water-resistant to 30 metres, these watches are ideal for both dressy and leisure activities.
A chauffeured ride back to the Messeplatz then saw me back in the Hall of Dreams in the vast Swatch Group section to meet Jean-Claude Monachon, Vice President and Head of Product Development for Omega. An hour or so later I left suitably impressed by the creativity and versatility of Omega. The Speedmaster Professional and the Legend Collections had new models (see the Sports Watches section) and there were some charming ladies’ watches in the Constellation Quadrella Collection along with an innovative creation in the new Omegamania ladies’ collection. The Omegamania watches are in white or red 18 carat gold in the form of the Greek letter Omega and set with 41 diamonds. The dial is in white, black or red mother-of-pearl and the shape is accentuated by the domed and facetted sapphire crystal. To maintain the clean, uncluttered lines of the case, a small pushbutton hidden in the side of the case corrects the time. A new quartz movement, the Calibre 4000 is housed in the case and it has a battery life of 40 months. However, it was the new Omega De Ville Rattrapante Limited Edition with its Co-axial Escapement technology with a split-seconds chronograph mechanism that really attracted my attention. In 950 platinum and equipped with the self-winding Calibre 3612 movement, the dial is in 18 carat white gold with three overlapping counters on a guilloché background. The continuous seconds counter has an intriguing new concept: two concentric arcs replace the circle, the inner arc has the 30-second scale and the outer arc takes over for the remaining 30 seconds. This is achieved by a reading off the same small seconds hand which has an arrowhead at each end and makes a complete revolution in one minute, thus the shorter end reads the 1 to 30 seconds and the longer one reads the 31 to 60 seconds. There is a date aperture between 11 and 12 o’clock and each watch is personalized by a red indicator on the small seconds counter, and the total number of the Limited Edition is to be found as a counterweight on the chronograph seconds hand. The 107 refers to the actual number of years that have passed since Omega launched its chronograph Calibre in 1898. A slightly different non-exclusive version exists in stainless steel.




Longines, Omega


A short walk and a lift saw me on the upper floor of the Hall of Emotions. There Alain Spinedi the Director of Louis Erard told me all about the brand’s revival and its dedication to the PPQS strategy: Price, Production, Quality and Service.
For the last couple of years, under the new management team headed-up by Alain Spinedi, the brand launched into an exclusively mechanical watch revival at particularly attractive prices: the least expensive watch being 545 and the most expensive 1,995 Swiss francs. There are five basic collections: the 1931 Collection is the brand’s Haute Horlogerie with complications designed for collectors and watch aficionados ranging from a regulator and power reserve to day/date/month and moon phases; the Heritage Collection is aimed at the slightly more conventional clients offering hours, minutes, small sweep-seconds and date to chronographs; La Carrée Collection is slightly more avant-garde in appearance with simple hours, minutes, seconds and date functions; the Move Collection, a more sporty series of chronographs with stainless steel bracelets and finally there is a Pocket Watch Collection for the nostalgic. All the watches are equipped with quality hand-wound or automatic Swiss movements.
Louis Erard can already be found in 23 countries, the most important being Switzerland, Italy, Germany, the USA and Japan. However, the company remains relatively small, thus allowing a very personal approach and contact with its clients and an enviable ordering and after-sales service.
For this year’s BaselWorld, the brand brought out two new attractive additions to its collection – a Heritage Cadran Paris Chronograph and a Heritage Cadran Paris Quantième both equipped with ETA automatic movements.
The day had ended, but the evening beguilingly beckoned with an invitation to dinner with the Avi Paz Group in one of Basel’s unique restaurants – Gasthof Zum Goldenen Sternen.
Avi Paz greeted us at the door - ‘us’ because I was accompanied by Europa Star’s charming Marketing Director, Nathalie Glattfelder - and after an aperitif or two, when the stragglers had arrived, dinner began.




Louis Erard, Nina Ricci


Avi Paz (who has since been elected as President of the Israel Diamond Exchange) is the CEO of the one of the world’s leading manufacturers of straight edged fancy diamonds including his recently introduced PrinceCut™, a patented straight edge diamond with 111 facets. In 2003, the group also opened a factory for precision cutting custom made stones for the watch industry, supplying to most of the leading Swiss watch manufacturers.
The evening was attended by several watch manufacturers – including Bernhard and Ewa Lederer of blu – Source du temps and a couple of old friends of mine from way back when … Israel Itzkovitz a diamond expert and David Yurman, an innovative jewellery designer and manufacturer who has recently and successfully begun producing watches.
The evening ended with the last two gentlemen and myself aching with laughter about a real-life situation concerning Viagra and a dog … but that’s another story!

TO BE CONTINUED...
In the forthcoming days, the rest of this lenghty survey will be added to our europastar website.

BASELWORLD & SIHH: Part 1
BASELWORLD & SIHH: Part 2
BASELWORLD & SIHH: Part 3
BASELWORLD & SIHH: Part 4
BASELWORLD & SIHH: Part 5
BASELWORLD & SIHH: Part 6
BASELWORLD & SIHH: Part 7


Source: April -May 2005 Issue

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