Countdown to Baselworld 2014

A week from now Baselworld doors fling open unto an eager crowd of watch and jewelry enthusiasts, buyers, boutique owners, journalists and seekers. From March 27th to April 3rd, show goers will venture from hall to hall and event to event gathering information about new styles, prices and brands. Old friends will meet, new ones made, contacts forged, orders arranged and signed upon the dotted line. Seven informative Baselword Daily News issues ,available online and at the show itself,  keeps visitors abreast of "must-see", news and current trends. A Baselword App on your i-phone, i-pad, blackberry and android provides useful interactive information.

I have outlined a brief Pre-Baselworld Virtual Walk to Navigate the halls. Keep in mind, this is just a hint of what awaits you at the show.


Hall 1.0 is a given to go with highly popular prolific top notch brands such as Rolex, Breitling, Omega, Patek Phillipe, Tissot, Hublot, Tag Heuer - you get the gist.

Breitling for Bentley 6.75 Midnight carbon

Hall 1.1 houses a bejeweled assortment of high end brands - famous for gem encrusted watches and jewelry  such as House of Graff, Boucheron, Jacob &; Co. and of course de Grisigono.  Great Sporty brands such as Edox, U-Boat and Clerc are displayed among high end accessory brands such as Hermès, Dior and Chanel. Seiko holds a prominent place being in a category of its own.
Quite a few lessor known brands are within these walls, but favorites are found all around.  Europa Star spans one wall - an excellent watch news source.
 Hall 1.3 showcases affordable brands such as Invicta, Follie Follie, Guess and Casio.

Jacob & Co. Epic SF 24

International Brands
Hall 2.0, 2.1, 2.2 is abundant with jewelry - each booth displaying originality in design and expertise.
Eterna, Ball Watch USA holds command of Hall 5.0.
The Palace is by far my favorite Baselworld local, housing unparallelled watch making expertise.  HYT renowned for its hydro mechanical timepiece is at P03, while at P06, the edgy and daring Artya brand  rubs shoulders with the elusive Haldimann Horology.

HYT H2 Forged from Titanium & White Gold with Blue Fluid

 The Palace is abundant with complex complications perfected by MB &F, Konstantin Chaykin (genius in watch design) and Christophe Claret.  Badollet - keeper of my favorite design and De Bethune- creator of the finest blue  are found at P01 and P02 respectively.

Badollet Ivresse like a Painters Pallet

Hall 3.0 and 3.1 is abundant with jewelry and gem.
Hall 4U holds necessary tools for the trade and Hall 4.0 and 4.1 are National Pavilions.



Unlike the exclusive SIHH , where visitors must receive an invitation to attend, Baselworld is open to the public without prior registration.  Simply show up and purchase your ticket "on-the-spot" or online at www.baselworld.com. Prices are quite affordable at CHF   60.-for the day or CHF 150.-for the week.

Coming from far and away without a place to stay? Enjoy some Swiss Hospitality at the Mövenpick Hotel Egerkingen. If you wish to be a bit closer to the action, a room at the Hotel Alexander Basel is a stones throw away. Zürich is  a 90 minute train ride away with hotels galore ready to welcome a Baselword traveller. But whether you come by land or air, it is on the water you can stay.  Book a floating room on the "Hotel Ship" for the duration of your trip. A free shuttle bus will transport you to the show - just 15 minutes away. 

The show does not end at closing time, Baselworld Village is open from 6pm until 2am.  Restaurants and Bars provide prime places to seal a deal over some fine wine and delectable dine.  

For the best and most productive Baselworld experience planning is crucial, but  the most memorable moment may just be chance. Make a memory, a deal, a contract, a sale, a moment.  Come to Baselworld.

The First Plastic Watch Movement Ever Made Tissot IDEA 2001

Today the talk is about Carbon Fiber, Nanotubes, Daimeze and Zalium (Harry Winston specialty), but imagine when the prolific plastic came into being. Plastic infiltrated every industry changing our world forever. Now we are suffering the consequence of its use.  Just ask IWC ambassador David de Rothschild who sailed the world in his bottle boat named "Plastiki" to create awareness of the detrimental effects plastics create in our environment - particularly from the multitude of plastic nurdles floating  in our oceans.
 But I have gone off topic - a terrible habit of mine.  I have not written this blog to frown at plastics, but rather to reminisce about  its entrance into the world of horology.

Plastics were around for decades before Tissot unveiled the groundbreaking  IDEA 2001 in 1971.


Articles announced with amazed astonishment,



" THROWAWAY WATCH: A timepiece with plastic works so inexpensive that they can be discarded and replaced whenever they fail to function properly has been developed by Tissot of Geneva"

The IDEA 2001 also known as Astrolon 2250  or SYSTAL "Systeme Total d'Autolubrification" looks like a cheap wind up plastic toy - the kind that inevitably gets stepped on by oblivious adults and has to be thrown away.  In actual fact some 40 years later, some of these watches are in perfect working order keeping excellent time and requiring very little maintenance. The movement has only 52 components as opposed to the 91 components of a standard Swiss mechanical movement, since pieces are molded together rather that screwed.   As you can see there are no screws, but rather wheels with pinions. There is but one jewel - the impulse pin of the escapement which is a synthetic ruby. The only metal in the movement is the balance assembly  (gold plated brass and Elinvar balance spring), mainspring and barrel as well as the winding mechanism. The injected molded plastic components required no lubrication - plastic after all is made from oil - and the intended purpose was to merely throw away the watch once it ceased working.

Ride the Waves With Tissot Sailing Touch

The incentive for accurate time keeping stemmed from man's sea voyages where finding a precise timekeeping instrument was a matter of life and death. Man's struggle to determine longitude spanning four centuries, fueled the inventions of precise timekeepers. Timepieces which lost time, lost men at sea, as they were unable to calculate their location and wandered among invisible lines of longitude weaving in and out of degrees. The 1600's and 1700's were perilous. Fleets of ships' sent out by hungry sovereigns on world exploration and to trade silks and spices were unable to determine their location. Some found land, some were too late spilling their scurvy riddled sailers onto an unmarked shore, others wandered aimlessly 20 degrees off coarse, some sunk in dark unforgiving waters. On October 22, 1707, four British Men 'O War sank just off the Cornish Coast. 2000 men were lost. In 1714, The British Parliament , aggravated by this obviously needless catastrophe, passed the Longitude Act: A huge sum of money would be awarded to anyone who could invent a way to determine the precise longitude of a ship's location to within less than one degree. (R.Van Halem)

... 300 years later ...

TISSOT UNVEILS THE SAILING TOUCH

The Tissot Sailing Touch provides crucial weather information for seamen where rogue waves and squalls make sailing treacherous. A Tissot Sailing Touch is thus an extremely beneficial instrument for Functions unique to the Tissot Sailing Touch include an integrated histogram displaying the weather conditions of the previous six hours, as well as a barometer function for measuring relative air pressure. Another useful function for sailors is a calculator indicating the tides at the ports of destination. Simply touch the dial and all this information is available at ones fingertips.

Preparing for a regatta, then the Tissot Sailing Touch gives one definite advantage over the competition. The Tissot Sailing Touch is equipped with a countdown function via beeps and digital display for the crucial ten minutes prior to the race commencement. A host of other functions such as a function for measuring speed over a specified distance; compass; two alarms; two time-zones, a perpetual calender (accounts for leap years), and back lighting.

Tissot is the official timekeeper of Nascar.

On February 15th, 1948, a new era in American Sport was born: Nascar (National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing), the fastest growing sport in America with over 75 million fans. In 2006 Tissot, the 150 year old swiss watchmaker was appointed the role of the official timekeeper of NASCAR and Official Watch of NASCAR.

Tissot introduced an entire collection of watches aptly named "NASCAR". These watches embody NASCAR with their sporty dials and bold colors. These watches represent the world of stock car racing; the revving sound of the engines careening round lap after lap of 500 miles at the Daytona 500, the smell of burning rubber, and the yells of the onlookers. The T-Touch Tissot Watch is one of the most popular models. The case is crafted from Titanium PVD. Its movement is E40.305 quartz. The unique aspect of this watch is in its touch driven technology . By touching on the crown and then on the touch sensitive screen the wearer can activate 8 different functions: An Altimeter in feet and meters; Chronograph -split and add time; Compass, Alarm, Thermometer ( in either Fahrenheit and Centigrade); Barometer; Date and time. The Touch Technology enables incredible ease of use, especially in tough terrains, hostile environments, or in competitive situations associated with the sports. Tissot has succeeded in combining a smooth elegant design with the pulsating energy of the speedway, and cutting-edge technology.

When it comes to racing, timing is everything. Tissot has a long history of timing speedway events like MotoGP and championship cycling. Tissot not only keeps time at the speedway, but also acknowledges the accomplishments of the drivers.

Tissot participated in NASCAR's Victory Lap last November , when NASCAR's top 10 drivers drove their stock cars through New York City's Times Square. After the Victory Lap, at the Hard Rock Café , Tissot awarded the top 10 NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series drivers each with an engraved PRS516 NASCAR 2007 Limited Edition watch. Jimmie Johnson won ten races in 2007, he is the NEXTEL Cup Series champion for the second year in a row. Tissot started a new tradition by honoring him with a exclusive timepiece from Tissot. Jimmie Johnson was presented with a Bridgeport featuring an 18K Gold bezel, chronograph, and decorated rotor.