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New movements from the old masters

Overview

This year's Salon International de la Haute Horlogerie (SIHH) in Geneva was awash with interesting new designs and technology, and even some way-out concepts. Demand was strong at both SIHH and the BaselWorld fair, and exhibitors were happy.

One of the most popular themes this year was the sea, especially regatta watches, but above all watchmakers paid tribute to women with a dazzling array of watches with mechanical movements, some with complications.

Under the heading of way-out ideas, Girard-Perregaux has surely taken first prize this year with its Jackpot Tourbillon. This is a serious watch complete with a tourbillon movement, but with a much more frivolous - but fully functional - slot machine feature built in. On the dial at 12 o'clock, windows reveal the three playing card symbols of a slot machine, while a cut-out at 6 o'clock reveals a gold bridge, underneath which is the tourbillon cage. Along the right-hand edge of the case, curving carefully around the crown, is the handle that sets the drums of the slot machine spinning. There are 125 possible combinations.

Girard-Perregaux also showed its serious side at SIHH, offering two versions of the ww.tc (world wide time control). The ww.tc - Financial indicates the times in different zones around the world, and also shows the hours when four major stock markets - New York, London, Hong Kong and Tokyo - are open for business.

Lange & Sohne produced one of the horological highlights of this year's trade shows in Switzerland: a hand-wound watch with a power reserve of 31 days, the Lange 31. No mechanical watch has ever been able to run longer on a single winding.

This year, Panerai announced the first four Panerai calibres from its own manufacture, with the spotlight on its hand-wound 8 to 10 days GMT function.

In keeping with the trend for sailing watches, it also launched the Luminor 1950 Regatta Rattrapante in a limited edition of 500 in steel. In its Professional Instrument Collection, it launched the The Depth Gauge in a 47mm Luminor 1950 steel case.

Cartier launched another entirely new family of watches for 2007, the Ballon Bleu, following hot on the heels of La Dona last year. It is round, but not perfectly round, and takes its name from the distinctive cabochon sapphire crown around which the dial and case are designed.

Other important new models from Cartier include the Rotonde de Cartier Grande Complication, with an eight-day power reserve and a perpetual calendar. Just 10 pieces are being made. New in the Cartier Libre Collection are Ronde Folle, Ronde Excentree and Ronde Perlee.

Piaget this year is concentrating on two themes: ultra-flat watches and chronographs for short-time measurement. In contrast to the general trend of offering ultra-large watches, Piaget is concentrating on finesse and elegance using its own manufacture movements. The Altiplano is now in new round and square cases, while the Altiplano Double Jeu has a double case.

The new large version of the Piaget Polo is an automatic chronograph with a pink gold case. The two barrels of the new manufacture Calibre 800P provide it with a power reserve of 52 hours. The large pink gold case is 43mm in diameter.

Piaget has introduced Limelight Party, a medium-sized watch set with 320 brilliant-cut diamonds (about 2.9 carats) and 30 brilliant-cut black sapphires (about 0.4 carat). The case is in white gold, the dial in onyx and the strap in black satin.

At SIHH this year, Vacheron Constantin introduced two very significant new lines: Patrimony Traditionnelle Calibre 2755 and a series called 'Les Masques'.

The Patrimony Traditionnelle is a worthy offspring of Vacheron Constantin's 250th anniversary. It is based on the remarkable showpiece from the celebration called Tour de L'ile and took three years to create. It is now the most complicated model in the company's catalogue. It has 602 components that power the tourbillon, minute repeater, hours and minutes, tourbillon seconds hand, perpetual calendar with day, month, date and leap year indications, as well as the power reserve display on a bridge on the back of the movement. One feature that will be appreciated by minute repeater enthusiasts is the use of a centripetal speed regulator in the striking mechanism that eliminates the noise normally associated with pallet systems.

The intriguing new Metiers d'Art Les Masques Collection is an attempt by Vacheron Constantin to look to the future and to create a cultural bridge between nations using tribal art as its inspiration. Twelve masks were selected from the Barbier-Mueller Museum in Geneva and recreated in miniature in gold by Vacheron Constantin's craftsmen. Each three-dimensional mask then becomes the main feature of each watch. The time, day and date can be read without the use of hands in four small windows on the dial, and the calibre 2460G4 movement has been redesigned to make way for the masks.

In recent years, Audemars Piguet has been so prolific that it can be difficult to select individual pieces to highlight, but this year two, in particular, deserve special attention. The company has combined two specialities in the latest version of its Jules Audemars line - a minute repeater and jumping hours. The case and dial of this new model give a new slant to classical styling, and this watch will be music to the ears of connoisseurs. Bold Arabic figures around the edge of the dial highlight the minutes, while the jumping hour is displayed in the aperture in the upper half of the dial. A small seconds dial is featured at 6 o'clock.

In 2006, Audemars Piguet stunned the watch world by introducing a movement with a revolutionary escapement that combined the high efficiency of a direct-impulse escapement with the reliability of a Swiss lever escapement. It was featured initially in the Cabinet No5 series, a limited edition of 20 watches that are part of the Cabinet series. Now it has been introduced in the Millenary Watch with Deadbeat Seconds. In the Millenary case the movement has been turned over so the escapement is clearly visible at 9 o'clock.

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