Are we pumped for SIHH 2018 yet? Just like the “holiday shopping season” and beginning around the same time, it seems like the new-product announcements get earlier every year. With still more than a month to go, the 2018 models that we will get to see in Geneva in January have already started coming in. The Salon International de la Haute Horlogerie (SIHH) watch industry trade show, just like its organizing body the Fondation de la Haute Horlogerie (FHH), has continued to grow and evolve each year, adding more brands as well as a day where the show is open to the public for the first time in 2017 – this time around, it will be Friday, January 19th, 2018. Now with a total of 35 brands, SIHH 2018 promises even more variety than in previous years.
While Audemars Piguet has obtained quite a bit of flak in the past for what some collectors perceive as milking the Royal Oak fame a little too much, I believe the choice available within the range is a great thing. Not everyone can afford a tourbillon chronograph, and not everyone wants just a time-only watch. At least the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak collection provides both as well as many other choices, with broadly similar aesthetics. The Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Tourbillon Chronograph Openworked Material Great watch comes with a bracelet of the identical substance as the case and an additional alligator leather strap. It’s available at Audemars Piguet boutiques and the Material Good shop in NY for $297,000 for its pink gold variation and $261,000 for the titanium model. In SIHH 2017, Swiss Audemars Piguet renowned color – that is clearly the focus for these variations of the favorite Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Offshore Diver 15710ST. The independent manufacturer’s offerings are light on novelty but abundant in hue, and called the “Funky Colour Editions.” Therefore, the provider is most likely doing what’s clever this season as they continue to browse uncertain financial oceans where pouring R&D money into entirely new products can be regarded as a bit unwise. Despite understanding this fact of essential prudence, it makes being a watch blogger hard since we are always hungry for yearly “newness.” With that said, Audemars Piguet continues to remind myself and colleagues that our urge for “everything Royal Oak” is by no means a new feeling.
You already know that SIHH is one of the two most important events for the watch industry, as its exhibitors – while much fewer than at the biggest industry trade show, Baselworld – represent many major and influential brands, and this is the time of year when they introduce their most important new products. Vis-à-vis Baselworld – where around 300 brands represent the breadth of the watch industry from high-end and mainstream to obscure startups – SIHH has always carefully maintained an image of exclusivity and “prestige.”
So, while a few brands do introduce models in the “mid-level luxury” range that the average person might be able to consider saving up for and possibly actually wearing… you can expect a lot of skeletonization, avant-garde designs, artisanal techniques and haute horology finishing, “high complications,” precious materials, and stratospheric prices. Haute horlogerie is in the name, after all. It has largely been a spectator’s show for fans of high-end watchmaking, but with recent industry trends emphasizing more “down-to-earth” (it’s all relative) models, some balance and variety can at least be hoped for.
This is a watch that is so known to many of you, perhaps it doesn’t require much of an analysis — but this is HODINKEE and you can believe you are gonna get one. The Royal Oak Chronograph is a wristwatch that has tens of thousands of lovers all over the world, and a few detractors, too. The Royal Oak and Royal Oak Offshore families frequently appeal to quite different individuals, but I will get to this shortly. Within this review, I tackle a mainstay at the AP lineup, and also an interesting piece of haute horology, though one without its own in-house motion. I’ll have a look at just how this 41mm column-wheel, vertical clutch chronograph wears, and if the matter of where the movement came from is even something worth noting at all. That is your HODINKEE Week On The Wrist with the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Watch 26330st.Oo.1220st.01 Royal Oak Chronograph, and it is one worth spending some time with.AP is a really unique watch manufacture. It’s among the very few worldwide haute horology brands which stays in the hands of its founding family, with several members of the Audemars family still sitting on its board. However, the possession of AP isn’t necessarily the most interesting side of the 175 year old fabrication — the question that matters is who buys AP’s watches?
SIHH 2018’s 35 Exhibiting BrandsThe Richemont Group along with some independent brands long represented the handful of SIHH exhibitors. However, the show’s 2016 edition added a “Carré des Horlogers” section with nine “artisan-creators and independent workshops” and expanded that number in 2017. This year, the Carré des Horlogers brands are up to no fewer than 17, with the primary exhibitors (referred to as “Historic Maisons”) at 18 for a total, again, of 35. The primary exhibitors are joined by Hermes, and the Carré des Horlogers adds five brands with Armin Strom, DeWitt, Ferdinand Berthoud, Élégante by F.P.Journe, and Romain Gauthier. See the full list of exhibitors in the image above.
From a media perspective, Baselworld has tended to spread our resources very thinly in past years with simply too much to cover at once, so with some prominent brands having moved from Baselworld to SIHH, we can hope for some balance between the shows. Around 20,000 visitors are expected this year, and the FHH promises improved facilities and connectivity in order to make our job of bringing you high quality content more efficient – so we’ll see what that’s like in January. That’s just a glimpse into our point of view in preparing for the show.
We’ll continue providing news of new products ahead of the show – if mostly only renders and official product images from the brands with basic information before being able to see the watches in person to photograph and evaluate them in their glorious and gritty reality. SIHH 2018 runs from January 15th to the 19th, and again, the last day is open to the public with tickets on sale at the SIHH website. sihh.org
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