It may be the effects of the imminent summer break, but there was a positive mood in the world of watchmaking last week. The feedback from the EPHJ-EPMT-SMT trade show in Geneva was upbeat and since many of the exhibitors depend on the watch industry for their business, things can’t be too bad. The May statistics published by the Federation of the Swiss Watchmaking Industry bore this out, with exports of luxury watches increasing above the industry average in terms of both units and value.
We continued our series on the Geneva Watchmaking Grand Prix with an interview with Stephen Forsey of Greubel Forsey, who won the award back in 2010, while two of our contributors focussed on some less well-known aspects of watchmaking: the secret signatures used by some brands and the possibilities of personalisation offered by others.
As we started our Summer Watches series with an article on regatta watches, a couple of other stories also captured the summer mood. De Bethune announced its first-ever ambassador, French tennis star Gaël Monfils, who will be wearing the brand’s DB28 model for the first time at this year’s Wimbledon tennis championships, whose legendary strawberries and cream are the epitome of summer for us Brits. Meanwhile, Cartier chose the Société Nautique here in Geneva to formally present its new Calibre de Cartier Diver, an important launch for the brand, since it is their first-ever diver’s watch.
Next week we bring you education, art, refinement and diving… all from the watchmaking angle, of course.
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