SIHH 2012 – The Showstoppers

#wtsihh | Covering the Palexpo exhibition halls of SIHH 2012 for four days, I was bound to experience a few things that makes you go hmmm. Not only watches, mind you. Take a look at an unusual list.

WORLDTEMPUS - 3 February 2012

Kristian Haagen

Great: The IWC Pilot’s Worldtimer. A watch that makes perfect sense in terms of form and function. I only have to ask what took IWC so long to come up with this kind of watch?

The IWC Pilot’s Worldtimer makes perfect sense in terms of form and function © Wordtempus / Kristian Haagen

Cool: RM052 Skull. Richard Mille is the modern pirate of the horological world. Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!

Interesting: The power reserve of the JeanRichard Diverscope LPR. When the power reserve is at max, the 12 o’clock marker is full of contrast color. A novel idea.

The € 8,900 JeanRichard ChronoScope LPR with its unique power reserve on the 12 © Wordtempus / Kristian Haagen

Fantastic: Still in love with the Hamptons “house décor” seen at the Baume & Mercier booth. It made me feel like splashing on the suntan oil and putting on a Hawaiian shirt.

Baume & Mercier’s booth emanated a real beach feeling © Wordtempus / Kristian Haagen

Weird: The fact that nobody even raised a single eyebrow every time these crazy retail prices were quoted during presentations. The “cheapest” watch I personally saw was the € 8,900 JeanRichard ChronoScope LPR. The most expensive was the Richard Mille “Ghost” Felipe Massa RM056 with sapphire crystal case for € 1.4 million. With prices like this are we talking watches or art…or both?

Funny: When a Dutch journalist asked the world’s best polo player, Pablo MacDonough, how he keeps his pants so white. The answer was, “My wife washes them.” Probably not the question MacDonough had expected to hear at a watch fair.

Useless: The free massaged offered at the SIHH show. I never had time for a massage, but certainly could have used one after four extremely busy days. How about a gift card to get one when we get back home instead?

Returning trend: The servers at the fair restaurants were super attentive and their service incredible! You felt like tipping them.

Wonderful: Still amazed by the amount of international print magazines offered for visitors to take at the SIHH entry point. I salute the growing number – and the fact that I can grab as many as I like while there.

Disappointing: Why did Piaget opt for black PVD treat on their otherwise really cool Polo FortyFive in titanium? It seems somewhat “last year” to me. Even Audemars Piguet stopped using PVD two years ago.