It’s impossible to really describe how it feels to be part of an event that brings people together, that unites an entire industry despite differences of background and philosophy, despite competing alliances and aims. Something this deeply impactful normally only happens once in a lifetime. Sometimes, if you’re lucky, it happens more than once. Very, very rarely, it’s something you get to experience on a regular basis. Those of us in the watch world are fortunate indeed, because we do get to experience such an event every two years — and that event is Only Watch.
This year will mark the 9th edition of the watch industry’s most anticipated and beloved charity auction. Only Watch is bigger than ever, with 53 unique timepieces to be sold by Christie’s Geneva on 6 November 2021. This is an 6% increase in the number of participating watches, compared to the last edition, which was held in 2019 and took in a record-setting 38.6 million Swiss francs.
Every edition of Only Watch has a theme, either purely visual or conceptual, and Only Watch 2021 has chosen to manifest hope and optimism in a gradient of warm solar hues. This is singularly appropriate, as the charity that Only Watch benefits, the Association Monégasque Contre les Myopathies, is expected to launch clinical trials in 2022, bringing new avenues of possibility to the lives of children suffering from Duchenne muscular dystrophy.
Several brands have elected to express aesthetic solidarity with this colour theme — notably Hublot with orange sapphire crystal, Ulysse Nardin with an orange-accented version of their UFO table clock, Trilobe in their collaborative piece with artist Daniel Buren, Maurice Lacroix in full orange-and-carbon regalia, and Jacob & Co. with a visually amped-up Epic X Chrono.
Though less emphatically coloured, pieces such as the unique Audemars Piguet Royal Oak ref. 15202 (otherwise known as the “Jumbo”) in titanium and amorphous palladium alloy, Girard-Perregaux’s revived 1970s icon Casquette, and Patek Philippe’s complicated desk clock will certainly draw plenty of attention.
Not all the participating brands have finalised the visuals for their proposed Only Watch timepiece — stay tuned and we’ll soon bring you the full complement of unique creations that will come under the hammer this November in Geneva.
