Column: Watches and Wonders 2024 – reflections from a distance
Eqotime has taken a look at the new Tudor Ranger, a watch with a solid history tested under harsh conditions.
Text: Andreas Johansson
Photo: Eqotime
It is now over a week since Watches and Wonders, the year's big watch fair, was held in Geneva. The expectations were high, but what did we actually take away from this year's novelties and what can we expect in the future? Our writer Andreas makes a few reflections after this year's fair.
I woke up at 01 on the night before 9 April, the day when the very most of the manufacturers that I myself think are interesting release their novelties. In the middle of the night I first surf onto Rolex's website, then Tudor's, no novelties yet, back to sleep. I then wake up with a jolt in the morning, onto the websites again, now they have crashed, I immediately surf onto the forum klocksnack.se to see if anyone else has got to see the novelties and apparently I am not alone with the same thoughts many want to see the new releases and the Rolex releases had apparently leaked.
First reaction to Rolex's novelties? Well, it does not look so much fun, or above all, it looks expensive. Diamond-set Daytonas with precious metals, a crazy Deepsea in solid gold (!),a 1908 in platinum, Day-dates with exclusive dials, Sky Dwellers in precious metals, and then, the light in the ”bling darkness”, a black/grey GMT in steel. When the biggest disappointment had settled I still got a hope that Rolex perhaps, with this year's release, has a strategy that in this way they might catch up in the production lines and can thereby offer more of their attractive steel models. This was however quickly dashed when I read and heard in various watch media that it is rather the case that Rolex will scale down its production. What is actually true will presumably show itself in the coming years.
After Rolex I was most curious about what Tudor would release and like last year I think that Tudor, right now, releases the absolutely best value watches. In Tudor's novelties it was above all their BB 58 GMT that I thought stood out. My feeling is that Tudor right now releases models that many wish Rolex had produced. The general perception is that Rolex now wants to position itself among the really exclusive brands like Patek, Vacheron and AP. Tudor in that way becomes the new ”Rolex”, a brand that becomes more accessible and hand on heart perhaps the best value brand on the market right now. I do not know if the observations are correct, but related to this year's there is perhaps something in it.
The fair is of course so much more than Rolex and Tudor. There were several incredible novelties on offer, such as: A Lange & Söhne Datograph Perpetual Tourbillon Honeygold ”Lumen”, Jaeger-LeCoultre Duometre Heliotourbillon, Piaget Altiplano Ultimate Concept Tourbillon.
And also IWC’s Portugieser Eternal Calendar, Patek Phillippe's World Timer, green Overseas from Vacheron Constantin and Cartier Tortue Monopoussoir.
But even if the above mentioned releases are fantastic watches, this year's fair has had a rather lukewarm reception in the watch world. There is broad talk of an in-between year for the industry and even if there were many fine novelties most of them were in such an exclusive class that they will hardly reach ”the common man”.
A quote from the fair that stuck with me came from Jean-Frédéric Dufour, Rolex CEO who said: ” The watch is the last purely mechanical product” with references to the car and camera industries. The quote is interesting from several aspects, above all I interpret it as that at least Rolex has no plans whatsoever to digitalise any product. I think that Rolex, and for that matter the rest of the big manufacturers, are right in that. The mechanical watch is today, a piece of jewellery, a craft, a status marker, an exclusive accessory and not a technical revolution that will change how we see time and space. Therefore the digital technical innovations are not needed in the watch industry in the same way as in the car and camera industries, the exclusive hard to reach hand(watch)crafts are a part of the watch industry's strategy and it will probably remain that way going forward, those are at any rate my conclusions from this year's fair.
