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Carl Cunanan

Change seems to be in the air and this was evident at BaselWorld 2011, where the exhibition halls were a microcosm of a technologically new era dawning on the industry.
For one, there seems to be an understanding that balance is the key to survival and the future. The balance must be between technology and heritage, between  marketing and an attempt to understand what it is  that should be produced, and between playing to  watch enthusiasts and giving newbies something to get them started. 
Gone are the days  of making insane pieces to get attention  from owners of only the heaviest of wallets. 
No longer around is the tolerance for the idea that modern communications technology is  an enemy.  
There seems   an understanding that  you have to give good, intelligent people some good, intelligent products.
Many in the predominantly Swiss industry have taken a while to  embrace  communications technology. 
The more enthusiastic  have tended to be smaller players  who have a more direct relationship with customers, usually via the internet.
TAG Heuer launched a wonderful new piece, the Mikrograph Flying 1000 Concept Chronograph,  which broke barriers by providing wristwatch mechanical accuracy to 1/1,000th of a second. 
This required rethinking and re-engineering in a big way,  plus more than a dozen new patent filings. Perhaps more important, though, was the actual launch, which was broadcast live over the  Web. Questions came in from the floor and from the Web at the same time, and you could feel the differences as enthusiast queries came in via chat or e-mail, while industry topics were brought up in person.  
Hamilton  spent a fair amount of time explaining how  it developed from scratch  its new internet-based cross-platform access systems and   a 3-D viewing system. Going deeper, Ulysse Nardin  activated a system that allowed  the brand to take orders on the BaselWorld floor and have them seen and input instantly into factory plans and production demands. 
 'This year, lots of companies were finally showing more inclination towards leveraging technology to enhance their brands,' says Paul Morillo,  vice-president of sales and marketing for Contenix,  which designed the Ulysse Nardin system. Similar to the SIHH exhibition this year, there were fewer unrealistic or unattainable pieces making their debut at BaselWorld.
Patek Philippe launched a triple complication that combines instantaneous perpetual calendar, monopusher chronograph and minute repeater in one clean 44mm Calatrava case. 
Breguet is a company more known  for its history than for technology and development. In reality, though, the Breguet name accompanies key inventions in the watchmaking world and gives the company the ability to say that its name sells other people's watches when it points to Breguet hands and coils in adverts for other brands. 
'For the last 236 years, Breguet has been known as the foremost inventor in watchmaking,' says  Hong Kong vice-president Martin Ganz.  'Just in the last 10 years alone, Breguet has successfully registered more than 100 patents.' 
This year, Breguet  launched the new Classique Hora Mundi. Hermes and Louis Vuitton are names more connected with the luxury and brand powerhouse worlds than with watchmaking, but both  know how to combine these very different realities to produce truly unique pieces. 
Hermes brought out  Golden Hand winner Jean-Marc Wiederrecht  to introduce  its Arceau Temps Suspendu,  a triple retrograde complication that  the brand says allows the user to 'stop time'. The simple push of a small button makes the hands jump to a zone around the 12 indicator as though they were reaching for the skies. 
The hands won't be indicating anything that could actually be a real time, and Hermes likes to say  it is really giving you the ability to shift reality for just a bit when you need it.  
Louis Vuitton, showing for the first time at BaselWorld, introduced a brilliant dual-time watch that gives you home time, not just by the hands but by the music of the minute repeater gongs as well. The Tambour Minute Repeater brought a smile to many a tired travelling face, and not a few thought this was one of those wonderful ideas that amazingly no one ever came up with before. 
Neither  the Arceau Temps Suspendu nor the Tambour Minute Repeater would have been  created by a more traditional watchmaker,  but they are of such high complication that the luxury brands' credentials in high horology can no longer be ignored. 
All of these pieces  manage to bring the ideals, if not the soul,  of the brands along with them. They are technologically inventive, mechanically intense and were hugely fun to have on our wrists. 
Each wristwatch at BaselWorld had a good reason to be there, pushing back boundaries and challenging preconceptions and abilities. Not one of them is a flippant, blingy piece that only brings up eyebrows and price tags; not one is a mere derivative of something already around. After the financial storms of the past few years, the dust seems to be settling in a way that may be creating great building blocks for inventiveness, advancement and longevity.



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