Watches&Wonders-2020, Asia

Richemont group is one of the world's largest luxury goods holding companies, and its biggest exhibition Watches & Wonders is currently touring through China. The exhibition will depart Shanghai on September 29 and continue on to Sanya, where it will run until October 31.

This show is vitally important for the entire Swiss watch industry. All things considered, it is not a very logical move to open up several boutiques in Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong, and then complain about a decline in Chinese watch imports after a few years. There are 200 major cities in China, most with over a million inhabitants, and these markets also need to be tapped.

The collections of eleven exhibiting watch brands will be brought from Shanghai to Sanya: A.Lange & Söhne, Baume & Mercier, Cartier, IWC Schaffhausen, Jaeger-LeCoultre, Panerai, Piaget, Hermès, Montblanc, Roger Dubuis and Vacheron Constantin. Seven exhibitors decided to call it a day and head home after Shanghai: H. Moser & Cie, Laurent Ferrier, MB&F, Arnold & Son, Speake-Marin, HYT and Bremont. 

It would be an exaggeration to say that the illustrious Richemont brands and the independent watchmakers who joined them presented a lot of new products in China, and there were even fewer world premieres. However, there were a handful of new pieces, and this article will bring you up to speed on them.

The A. Lange & Söhne Homage to F. A. Lange Collection

The 175th anniversary of the great Saxon brand A. Lange & Söhne is not until December 7, the day when the 30-year-old master watchmaker Ferdinand Adolph Lange opened his pocket-watch atelier in Glashütte, but the three models in the anniversary collection have already been created. The three anniversary timepieces belong to the 1815 watch family named after the founder's birth year. Other symbolic touches in the collection include watch cases in the soft Honeygold shade of the manufacture's proprietary patented gold alloy.

It is almost as strong as steel with a hardness of just over 300 HV (Hardness Vickers), which is twice as hard as ordinary 750 grade gold. The 3/4 plate watch movements have a hand-engraved balance cock, as well as hairsprings with a high beryllium content, which provides greater elasticity and isochronism.

All models were released in limited editions. The simplest watch in the collection is the 1815 Thin Honeygold with two (hour and minute) hands, of which only 175 limited edition pieces are available. It comes in a 38 mm diameter and 6.3 mm thick case, where the L093.1 manufacture caliber is housed.

The movement has a frequency of 21,600 vph, a 72-hour power reserve, and it is of course hand-wound, so there is nothing to obscure your view of the movement's manually assembled details. For some reason, this model's dial has been rendered white (the other two are black). At 29 000 euro, it's a pricey piece.

The second model in the Homage to F. A. Lange collection is the 1815 Rattrapante Honeygold, another prized piece from the Saxon watchmaker with a rattrapante chronograph, also known as a split-seconds chronograph. Oddly enough, what makes this model exclusive is that A. Lange & Söhne had no previous experience making rattapante chronographs.

They have made record-breaking watches – the Double Split, the Triple Split, and complex Grande Complication models featuring a rattrapante-chronograph function — yet this was their first "ordinary" rattrapante stopwatch. The debut piece was in fact the manually wound L101.2 caliber, comprised of 365 components with two column wheels, a frequency of 21,600 vph, and a power reserve of 58 hours. There will be a limited edition release of 100 watches in a 41.2-mm case. The watch will retail for 115,000 euro.

The jewel in the crown of the Homage to F. A. Lange anniversary edition collection is the 1815 Tourbograph Perpetual Honeygold, which you could call the Honeygold version of the Tourbograph Perpetual Pour le Mérite presented by the manufacture three years ago in a platinum case with a white dial. Not only is the case made of Honeygold, but there are also additional subdials, a tourbillon, and a moon-phase display.

It’s equipped with the same L133.1 caliber built from 684 components, with a rattrapante chronograph, and fusée-and-chain transmission to deliver constant force. These watches will be released in a limited edition of 50 pieces. While the previous platinum model cost 477,600 euro, the latest one costs no less than 500,000 euro.

All models will be exclusively available in A. Lange & Söhne boutiques. The full three-piece collection can be purchased and gift-wrapped as appropriate, but you will need to contact A. Lange & Söhne directly for the price.

IWC Portugieser Chronograph Steel Bracelet

For the first time, the bestselling watch from the luxury watchmakers in Schaffhausen did not present their IWC Portugieser Chronograph on an alligator strap, but have tried out a new metal to create a stainless steel bracelet.  Judging by the latest responses on IWC fan forums, everyone is thrilled.

That's not to say that the new bracelet is a true masterpiece of modern watchmaking in terms of its design, but its five-piece solid links fit the wrist almost perfectly, and it's remarkably comfortable to wear, without any of the free hair removal that these types of bracelets tend to provide, albeit unwanted and painful. Let's not forget that back in the day, a watch with a marine background simply had to have a metal bracelet.

The alligator is no sea creature, and the strap cannot tolerate seawater. However, the watch still comes with a leather strap. There have been no changes made to the model itself. It still has the same 41 mm case, the same dial design with the symbolic number eight formed by the 30-minute chronograph counter at 12 o'clock and the small hacking seconds on the other side, and it has the same self-winding 69355 caliber manufacture movement, which runs at 28,800 vph with a 48-hour power reserve.

This chronograph could still be improved with greater water resistance. The "3 BAR" mark engraved on the caseback is often jokingly interpreted by marine personnel as a guide to how far you need to keep away from the water. It is priced at a pleasantly reasonable 7600 euro.

The Vacheron Constantin Overseas Self-Winding Pink Gold and Blue

The long name of this new September release lists all of its distinctive features. Following the spring release of the Overseas Perpetual Calendar Ultra-Thin and its Skeleton version, a new core model was added to the Overseas collection. The new Overseas Self-Winding has no complications, but the three-hand calendar-date model is an essential sport de luxe in a 41 mm rose-gold case with a rose-gold bracelet.

The automatic Vacheron Constantin 5100 caliber with a frequency of 28 800 vph and a 60-hour power reserve is Hallmark of Geneva certified, and can of course be viewed through the sapphire display caseback. Its caseback may be transparent, but it still has a sufficiently high water resistance of 150 meters. It comes with a rubber strap. Everything is great except its steep price tag of 39,500 euro.  

Parmigiani Tondagraph GT Rose Gold Blue

Lastly, the final novelty that we have selected for standing out at Watch & Wonders was the piece unveiled by the luxury brand Parmigiani. What makes this piece so special? The answer is that Parmigiani Fleurier has high hopes for this model.

Another reason is that the brand is right in the middle of a reformation, and there are fewer and fewer pieces that have kept Michel Parmigiani's exquisite aesthetic which has enjoyed a cult following, regardless of any statements made about a continued adherence to the "golden ratio" parameters he used to create the case architecture. This is yet another attempt by yet another watchmaker to grab a slice of the cake in what is a tempting market for luxury sports watches.

The prototype for the new PF071 caliber was the magnificent PF361, which runs at a high frequency of 36,000 vph. It is largely thanks to the PF361 that the Parmigiani Tonda Chronor Anniversaire won the Chronograph Watch Prize hands down at the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève four years ago.

The 42 mm case is complex and interesting in its own unique way. The bracelet is simply spectacular. Whether its price of 56,000 euro is justified remains debatable. There is always a rubber-strap version for 35,00 euro.