What does a pandemic-free future hold for the world’s biggest watch fairs?
No cheers to the coronavirus, all major global events have been cancelled or postponed. The globe'southward 2 largest watch and jewellery fairs, Watches & Wonders Geneva (formerly SIHH) and Baselworld have not escaped these unprecedented times, but the way the both of them are handling it are markedly different.
As lookout and jewellery enthusiasts will know, Watches & Wonders Geneva has been transformed into a completely virtual outcome that will launch today at 12pm CEST (6pm SGT) on www.watchesandwonders.com.
Had information technology been allowed to continue equally originally planned, the 30th edition of the off-white would have been held in Geneva from Apr 25 to Apr 29 with a new focus celebrating the city'due south rich watchmaking history. Information technology would also exist the offset time the traditionally merchandise-but fair was open up to the full general public.
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Instead, anyone with an cyberspace-enabled device and a passing involvement in horology can tune into its online edition where all 31 brands, which include familiar Richemont Group names like Cartier, Piaget and Vacheron Constantin, as well as independents like Arnold & Son and Speake-Marin, volition be unveiling their novelties all at once. Visitors to the site can wait video presentations alongside images and information, and fifty-fifty social media portals for fans to exist all a twitter in.
The site will remain up even by the originally designated off-white dates, and new content will go along to be uploaded in phases as the year progresses, ranging from live-streamed interviews and panel discussions to educational videos on applied science and savoir-faire. The watchmakers are making sure its collectors come across their shiny new things, pandemic be damned.
Baselworld, on the other hand, is simply done, at to the lowest degree for this twelvemonth. The Swatch Group's deviation from the off-white final year, bringing with it 18 brands, portended the end of the 103-yr-old merchandise testify. (The Group has since prepare its ain showcase, Time to Move, in Zurich). Other notable names like Breitling, Corum, Raymond Weil and Maurice Lacroix followed soon later on, all of them citing reasons that range from outrageous costs to arrogant management.
Even when the highly optimistic, pro-change Michel Loris-Melikoff was brought on lath in 2022 equally Baselworld's new managing director to salve the fair, it was possibly too picayune too late.
Just final week, Rolex, Tudor, Patek Philippe, Chanel, Chopard and the LVMH Watchmaking Partitioning (comprising Bvlgari, Hublot, TAG Heuer and Zenith) announced their departure from Baselworld, every bit well as their plans to fix up their ain show in Geneva next year in partnership with the Fondation de la Haute Horlogerie (FHH), the same organisers of Watches & Wonders.
While LVMH yet managed to debut its 2022 novelties in January with its LVMH Watch Calendar week in Dubai, the others similar Patek Philippe and Rolex have no identify to showcase their wares and hence are delaying their releases indefinitely.
The reactions and carefully worded statements surrounding this exodus have already been well-documented, so the bigger point of involvement is what Baselworld'south owners, the MCH Group, can peradventure do now. They can maybe funnel all their resources into Art Basel, which the group also organises, or continue their 2022 efforts of giving their jewellery clients more than face time at the next Baselworld (scheduled for January 2021) if they decide to continue it going.
Going fully digital though, will not be the long-term answer for either fair – or any luxury showcase for that affair. It'due south laudable how speedily the organisers and brands managed to save what they could of Watches & Wonders, only videos and pictures, no matter how loftier the resolution, isn't going to compare to the real thing. Only because nosotros can buy a Ferrari with our telephone doesn't mean nosotros don't nonetheless desire a test drive. The same holds truthful for high jewellery and watchmaking.
The online portals can and should remain open to all to build involvement and community. It's actually a wonder they haven't been doing this in accompaniment to the actual shows this whole time. The concrete events will and so be the real luxury – a glitzy mega wonderland of haute horlogerie'south biggest names finally gathered in 1 place and at the aforementioned time, and reserved only for those dedicated enough to brand the journey.
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Source: https://cnalifestyle.channelnewsasia.com/obsessions/baselworld-watches-and-wonders-future-250981
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