Changing the face of the watch world

I know the powers that be have not given me a medal, but this happens to be my twenty-fifth consecutive Basel Fair. When I visited it for the first time, apart from Hall 1, there was an unbridled mixture of everything from watches to saucepan vendors and jewellery to long-playing records and chocolates.
Threading your way from one watch or jewellery stand to another meant encountering almost every sound and smell known to Man. Those were the days when Cartier had an elegant two-level maroon and gold coloured stand placed next door to a vast and busy snack bar where vast quantities of beer and shublig sausages were consumed and hordes of hungry hunters and hausfraus happily conversed in decibels that make today's discos seem like dentists' waiting rooms.
It wasn't long after that the Fair became an exclusive watch and jewellery event with the rest of the popular paraphernalia being moved to a posterior date. However, all the fun of the Fair had changed. Overnight it became the Fair of Fairs, the mother of all watch and jewellery shows. From a small representation of specialists, it had become the world's stage for more than 2,000 exhibitors and despite the enormous space available, Basel soon had a waiting list running into the hundreds.
With four Halls and more than 2,000 stands, a visit became an endurance test for both the eyes and the feet. I once calculated that presuming each stand had a minimum of four display windows and you spent thirty seconds at each window, you could never see everything on show. You were also required to walk the distance equivalent to at least one marathon race.
The other day, Cecil Maye of Time Avenue, the creative company behind Nina Ricci watches, asked me what I thought was the most notable change at the Basel Fair. My initial facetious reply was how sushi had replaced the sausage as a form of nourishment. However, I later confided to her that I thought it was the influence of the Swatch watch. Let me explain.
Prior to the Swatch, the watch was almost purely an object for visualizing the time. Your father gave you one for your twenty-first birthday and the chances are that the next would be offered the day you retired from work x and a half years later. When Swatch came onto the scene, the watch became more than a formal instrument, it became a genuine accessory. Something you mixed and matched in much the same way as you chose your tie in accordance with your jacket and shirt.
Watch straps dramatically came to life. No longer were we tied down to having to make the difficult decision of choosing between either a black or a brown strap, suddenly there were whites, blues, reds, greens and even pinks.
Overnight, the entire watch wearing community's mentality changed. Manufacturers even began listening to consumers' demands rather than pooh-poohing their foibles with conceited disdain. As if by magic, we had an entire range of relatively inexpensive timepieces that were proudly worn for all to see. Shirtsleeves were hoisted so that the watch became an intrinsic fashion statement ... and then the fashion houses joined in the fray. Steel became the dominant material and was soon ennobled by the addition of diamonds. Design and form became an important byword and as the competition and rivalry intensified, so the mechanical watch suddenly came back into its own with a vengeance. The average punter was looking for something different - the manufactured tick tock was sought rather than the fabricated silence of quartz.
The mechanical watch had returned, it moves, therefore it lives.
That is why, in my humble opinion, the Swatch watch along with the effervescence and enthusiasm of Nicolas G. Hayek and his incredible Group, initiated the biggest change in modern times. Don't get me wrong, Abraham-Louis Breguet may still be the horological God and I agree that FranÇois-Paul Journe should be acclaimed as his progeny. But for changing the face of the watch world, Hayek takes some beating.
Anyway, wasn't he the man that introduced me to Anna Kournikova and Cindy Crawford?

Editorial from D. Malcolm Lakin
Managing Editor
Europa Star

April 2003