Panerai Luminor 1950 Regatta Rattrapante (PAM00286)

Worldtempus - 6 March 2013

It sort of feels against the spirit of it all, but every year I go to SIHH in search of watches people will actually wear. And when I say people, I'm ruling out sheiks, oligarchs and movie stars - yes, they're people too, but at the same time they're not. Instead, they "have" people, and those people fetch them million-dollar watches.
Now, I should point out at this stage I'm well aware SIHH is fine watchmaking's big do, and that the top trump watches from the fair are going to be made in limited numbers and cost a bomb - and that's fine. I love that stuff and I said as much in a piece about Richard Mille here on Worldtempus a few weeks ago.
But none of that has any tangible value to a consumer, even one with a fair bit of wedge to blow on a watch - £10,000 is a still a highly aspirational figure to spend on something that tells the time, lest we forget.
Which is why the only "best of" list I assimilate at the fair is of watches that could be called "ready-to-wear," a phrase borrowed from over the road and our friends in fashion. By that, I simply mean watches you might actually buy yourself and wear every day. Something you won't get mugged for wearing.
These then are my five "best ofs" from SIHH. Bread-and-butter stuff for the brands, perhaps, but word-of-mouth pieces nonetheless that will keep the customers happy and the coffers full.

IWC Ingenieur Automatic 40mm

IWC's expressed aim with the new Ingenieur was to take it beyond a collection of chronographs - hence the constant force tourbillon and digital date perpetual calendar models. But the watch I fell for was the Automatic, the closest in aesthetic to Gerald Genta's 1976 original Ingenieur SL design. Because it's only 40mm in diameter, it's too small to carry one of IWC's in-house movements, but that's a minor quibble, one many IWC and Ingenieur lovers will be happy to live with. It looks unflappable on the wrist - a sophisticated watch that will cut it both at work and play. (£4,650/€5,850)

Baume & Mercier Clifton

 

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I'll be the first to admit I don't get the brand's whimsical weatherboard and white-middle-class-nuclear-family shtick, but I do love its new Clifton, and, more importantly, am convinced this is a watch that could inject some much-needed life into the old brand. The gold hand-wound model with the La Joux-Perret movement will take the lion's share of the reviews, which is only part of the reason I've opted instead for the sun satin-finished silver-dialed automatic with blued steel hands. The main reason is that I had it on my wrist for two weeks before Christmas and I can tell you it's a fantastic watch. I have no doubt consumers will fall for it too. (£2,000/€2,325)

Panerai Luminor 1950 Regatta 3 Days Chrono Flyback Automatic Titanio (PAM00526)

Aside from wishing Panerai would give its watches considerably shorter names, I find it very difficult to fault the brand's collection. I'm of the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" school of thought and can't get enough of Luminors and Radiomirs - not least when they look like this. The PAM00526 is designed with people who race boats in mind and features a countdown timer, a genuinely useful complication I hanker after with unhealthy lust. While I'm not a yachty, I do time things, normally the short periods I have in which to complete life's tasks before I get called off in another direction. (£12,230/€13,900)

Jaeger-LeCoultre Deep Sea Chronograph Cermet

Jaeger-LeCoultre will spend most of its time this year talking about its 180th anniversary and its spectacular Jubilee collection, but the watch that made me jubilate was the Deep Sea Chronograph Cermet. As with last year's Deep Sea tribute models, it has a chronograph on/off indicator and comes in regular and vintage guises, but the brand has upped the case size from 42 to 44 mm. Last year I plumped for the regular look, but this year I'm going vintage, largely because of the way it works with the muted black tones of the brand's thwack-proof ceramic/aluminum alloy Cermet case and the upgraded diver's fabric strap, which - unlike last year's - is water-resistant. (£12,200/€13,800)

A. Lange & Söhne 1815 Up/Down

It wasn't really expected, but Lange sort of stole the show at SIHH, without doing any shouting. Yes, the brand's 50 mm Grand Complication watch is, I suppose, quite shouty (at €1.92 million it's certainly blindingly expensive), but its 1815 collection was spellbinding in its glorious understatement. The "entry-level" piece in the line-up is the 1815 Up/Down (which refers to its 72-hour power reserve indicator), a design so pure it must have been blessed by the outgoing pope. The 18-karat white gold version had me beatifying its designers because the case works perfectly with the solid silver dial and blued steel hands. And the view through the case back is classic Lange: the hand-engraved bridge and swan-neck regulator prove horology can be just as much about art as science. (£18,700/€23,000)