What’s hot at Watches and Wonders 2024

Now in its third year as a physical event, the annual Watches and Wonders fair in Geneva is bigger than ever. It has added a second hall, boosting the exhibitor space by 12,000sq m, and the number of brands has risen from 48 to 54, with Raymond Weil and Bremont among those joining heavyweights such as Rolex and Patek Philippe and boutique independents including Laurent Ferrier and Ressence.

So what’s on their mind? This year reveals an increased focus on women’s watches, with everyone from the most respected haute horlogerie houses to fashion brands putting some serious thought into the business of dressing the female wrist… perhaps because women’s watches are no longer exclusive to the female wrist. The Puerto Rican singer Bad Bunny has become a standard-bearer in the “real men wear women’s watches” movement. He is especially known for his espousal of vintage women’s Pateks, so I am sure he will be well aware that this is the 25th anniversary of Patek’s epoch-defining manchette-style Twenty-4, which celebrates its quarter-century with a sumptuous rose-gold model with a purple dial.

The Twenty-4 was an easy-wearing, anytime, anywhere sort of watch, with the king of versatility that Hermès is chasing with its new Cut collection. Offered in a gender-neutral 36mm case, with a winding crown between one and two o’clock (which probably makes it comfortable when worn fashionably loose on the wrist) and with straps in an abundance of colourways, it is fashion-functional but with a slight design quirk that stops just the right side of gimmickry.

Chanel seems to be getting wittier with its watches every year

Under the direction of Frédéric Grangié, Chanel seems to be getting wittier with its watches every year. I love the cheeky humour of its tape measure-inspired timepiece that wraps around the wrist in a manner that knowingly quotes the Bulgari Serpenti or Tubogas but with a uniquely Rue Cambon vocabulary. The Couture O’Clock automaton, featuring a little Coco Chanel marionette that springs to life at the touch of a button, is an example of how fun can be had with haute horlogerie.

Van Cleef & Arpels Lady Arpels Brise d’Été, white gold with diamonds, POA

Piaget Creative Collection High Jewellery, pink gold, POA

Patek Philippe Twenty-4 Ref 4910/1201R-010, rose gold, £40,780

Chopard Impériale, white gold and diamond, £133,000

Of course, the master of automata is Van Cleef & Arpels, which brings métiers d’art and mechanics together in a way that no one else can match. With its Poetic Complications the brand has established a new branch of horological endeavour. Every year VCA finds a new way to delight and this year it is the Lady Arpels Brise d’Été: enamel butterflies tell the time and at a touch of a button flowers sway in the summer breeze.

This climate of creativity in women’s watchmaking has certainly benefited Piaget, which, under the visionary leadership of Benjamin Comar, seems to have come to terms with its more exuberant side – as the chunky gold Polo ’79 and truly outstanding high-jewellery watches demonstrate in the brand’s 150th year.

For its part Vacheron Constantin has looked back into its archives and found the Kallista, a diamond-smothered masterpiece from 1979. At the time it was the world’s most expensive watch, giving birth to a new tradition of jewellery watches at Vacheron of which the Grand Lady Kalla is the latest staggeringly sparkly example. However, Vacheron is far from neglecting its core competency in complicated clockwork and this year presents the hyper-complicated Berkley, a one-off pocket watch that has been 11 years in the making. At 63 complications, it is claimed by Vacheron to be the most complicated pocket watch ever made. The Berkley pays particular attention to calendrical indications, which feature a mechanism that tracks the notoriously fiddly Chinese calendar.

Vacheron Constantin Les Cabinotiers The Berkley Grand Complication, white gold, POA

A Lange & Söhne Datograph UP/DOWN, white gold, POA

IWC Schaffhausen Portugieser Eternal Calendar, platinum, around £150,000

Jaeger-LeCoultre Duometre Helio Tourbillon Perpetual Calendar, rose gold, POA

Indeed, there is quite a bit of calendar action across other brands, IWC launches, what with only slight exaggeration it calls its Eternal Calendar, a Portugieser-case secular perpetual calendar with a 400-year gear, ensuring that the mechanism takes account of leap centuries, as well as a moon phase indicator, accurate to a mere 45 million years.

Over at Jaeger-LeCoultre you can take your pick between the newly introduced and unashamedly technical Duometre Helio Tourbillon Perpetual Calendar or its aesthetic inverse, the Master Ultra Thin Perpetual Calendar, a low profile, high-style dress watch version of this classic complication, which has been visually refreshed and endowed with a significant up-tick in power reserve for 2024.

Cartier continues with its winning formula of not so much touching, but breathing upon its archival designs and bringing them back to life. This year, it is the turn of the Tortue, which translates as turtle, giving a completely erroneous idea of the curvilinear elegance of this gorgeous watch. Even with a predictably strong offer in jewellery pieces, this is the Cartier that stands out for me, especially the two-subdial chrono version.

The Tortue is not the only great looking retro-chrono out there. One of my favourite watches of TAG Heuer’s recent production is the Carrera Chronograph Skipper, a column-wheel chronograph with vertical clutch and 80-hour power reserve. The “Aye Aye” Skipper, as it is colloquially known, first appeared in 1968, and was recently revived in steel. It has clearly proved such a hit that it makes its debut now in rose gold, with a very chic blue textile strap that brings out the salty sea dog in all of us. America’s Cup fans, meanwhile, will be happy to see the launch of Panerai’s “Submersible QuarantaQuattro Luna Rossa”. It’s made of something called Ti Ceramitech, a new material that took seven years of R&D at the Laboratorio di Idee at the Panerai Manufacture in Neuchâtel (the brand has subsequently filed a patent application for its titanium ceramisation process Electrolytic Plasma Oxidation).

Panerai Submersible QuarantaQuattro Luna Rossa Ti-Ceramitech, £14,300

Zenith DEFY Revival A3648, steel, £6,900

Rolex Oyster Perpetual Cosmograph Daytona, white gold with diamonds, £61,450

Rolex Oyster Perpetual Deepsea, yellow gold, £45,700

And if you are going under rather than on the water this summer, TAG’s LVMH stablemate Zenith has also looked back to the late 1960s and returned with the DEFY Revival A3648. As well as the very angular case design (think 14-sided bezel), it has also retained its original 600m depth rating, which, as the brand helpfully points out, is equal to 1,969 feet, in homage to the watch’s 1969 launch year. But if your tastes run to something more modern there is the Defy Extreme Diver in a 42.5mm titanium case.

But in terms of extreme diving, there is little that matches Rolex’s Deepsea, which makes its debut in 18-carat gold this year. Launched in 2008, and waterproof to a depth of 3,900m, in terms of performance it was an extreme version of the already extreme Sea-Dweller. Now in full 18-carat it outshines (as well as outdeeps) its sibling.  

Indeed one could describe 2024 as a year of ebullience for Rolex. As well as an 18-carat gold version of a watch that functions at depths lethal to the wearer, it introduces some very cheering gem-set Day-Dates. There are also new diamond-set versions of the Daytona with mother-of-pearl dials in both panda and reverse panda configurations. Even though you may have heard talk that this is likely to be a testing year for the industry, don’t count on finding these with any great ease.