Trend - A Year in Review (part two)
WORLDTEMUS - 29 December 2012
In July, the Olympics successfully held in London gripped the world and Omega captured a global sporting audience with its many activities as the main sponsor. Richard Mille also managed a major coup at the Olympics with popular sprinter Yohan Blake, who wore one of the brand's watches during a race just before officially announcing him as a brand ambassador. This was apparently frowned upon by the Olympic committee and it became national news.
July also saw the launch of Bremont's limited edition Victory watch held on board the historic HMS Victory in Portsmouth, England. This interesting mid-summer launch was perhaps overshadowed by Cartier showing the ID Two concept watch to the press in La Chaux-de-Fonds as well as the first serial watch to emerge from the ID One: the Astrotourbillon Carbon Crystal.
Just after the watch world's annual summer siesta in August (otherwise known as the "watchmaker holidays"), Urwerk held its first press event to celebrate the launch of the extraordinary UR-220. As the dog days of August rolled into September, the U.S. Open began in New York and Andy Murray emerged as a Rado ambassador only to forget to put his watch on after winning the year's fourth Grand Slam, as Miguel Seabra reported.
As the fall progressed, it became clearer that Felix Baumgartner's historic skydive from space was going to become the global event of the calendar quarter. The jump took place just as Breguet celebrated the Queen of Naples in Italy, introducing a unique parure including a gem-set repeater.
In October, Audemars Piguet and Michael Schumacher introduced the world-record-holding ambassador's first collection watches in Berlin, and Hautlence debuted a new model and changed ownership status.
And then the ever-more-successful local fall salons were upon us: Belles Montres, SalonQP, Munichtime and Viennatime. In between, Jaeger-LeCoultre found time to launch the Amvox 7 and Sotheby's auctioned off the late, great George Daniels' personal watch collection.
November marked the fourth Forum of the Fondation de la Haute Horlogerie entitled Time to Share. This remarkable day saw the movers and shakers of the Swiss watch industry invited to participate in quality talks, discussions and lectures that provided a great deal of food for thought. And then the Grand Prix d'Horlogerie was upon us. As a first-time jury member, I was very excited to see the inner workings of the watch industry's "Oscars" first-hand, and a few surprises of historic proportions turned up there: MB&F's Legacy Machine 1 won both the public prize (where regular consumers voted online and in person during the GPHG "world tour") and the best men's watch (chosen by the jury); Habring2, a virtually unknown boutique brand from Austria, took home the honors for best sports watch; a watch that tells the time using liquid (HYT) won the prize for best innovation; TAG Heuer won the Aiguille d'Or for a concept watch; and a woman was crowned best watchmaker of the year. In addition, the GPHG was simulcast live in New York City for the very first time. I would call this twelfth edition nothing short of phenomenal.
All in all, another moving year in the watch industry. Now that we have survived the end of the world, what might 2013 bring us? Wait and see….the SIHH in January will certainly provide at least some answers!
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