Is accessible and smart luxury the way forward?

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Is accessible and smart luxury the way forward? - Newsletter
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Mechanical capsules of joy from the world’s happiest country

The latest issue of our sister magazine GMT is published this week, including a special insert on the Geneva Watch Tour (read our article on the associated photography exhibition). In his editorial, Brice Lechevalier alludes to Switzerland’s recently confirmed status as the world’s happiest country, concluding that a wristwatch can therefore be considered as the capsule of joy referred to above.

“A competition every day for 90 days”

Paul O'Neil

While I was enjoying the sun in Porto Cervo for the launch of the new HYT H1 RC44 model (read my full report tomorrow), the rest of the WorldTempus team found themselves inside a giant model of the iconic Tiffany gift box, right next to the river Rhone in the centre of Geneva, to celebrate the opening of the brand’s new Geneva store, which is the flagship outlet for the new Tiffany watch collection. Discover the new store and photos from the event on our homepage today.

Happiness may not necessarily be the prevailing mood among many luxury watch brands, Frédérique Constant last week published surprisingly healthy figures for January until May this year, showing 9% year-on-year growth for the period – well above the stagnating levels of exports for the industry as a whole. The “accessible luxury” positioning of Frédérique Constant clearly exposes the brand to a wider audience and dampens the effects of the crisis in the upper echelons of the watchmaking industry. Together with its in-house smart watch technology that has already been licensed to several other brands, Frédérique Constant clearly has an air of confidence as it boasts about such figures ahead of the first-semester results of its competitors.

Just as Frédérique Constant seeks to differentiate through price and unique technology, other brands go to the lengths of developing their own “house blends” of red gold as a mark of distinction. From scratchproof to Fairmined, I take a look at some of these different types of red gold that brands want to convince us are redder, more lustrous and more eternal than those of their competitors.

Continuing his look at the nitty-gritty of watchmaking, David Chokron this week delves into the world of differentials in order to explain to the non-specialist exactly what role these gears play in a watch movement.

Having come up with the idea to have a competition every day for 90 days over the summer (starting with the summer solstice yesterday), we could not, unfortunately, offer a gold watch every day. Nevertheless, we have a variety of watchmaking goodies and gifts up for grabs every day over the summer, weekends included. Visit our “90 days of summer” competition page for more details and the editor-in-chief could soon be congratulating you personally by e-mail.

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