MOVING ON

Until earlier this year, The Swatch Group had kept everyone wondering just what its plans were to showcase its novelties for the year after Mr Hayek had made the decision to pull the group out of the Baselworld fair last year. The break with the fair was a major executive decision that sent ripples through the entire industry, with some watch brands vowing to remain and other following in the footsteps of the group and establishing their own programmes. With its retail partners, a separate but simultaneous presentation was organised in Zurich during the period of the Baselworld show, but with the press, the group opted to hold back and create a more comprehensive event that showcased six key manufactures and their products. As our online editor, Sumit Nag expressed, it was an impactful experience seeing the novelties at the sites of their design, development and production, to understand just how they were conceived. Here are some of the key watches (in our humble opinion) and highlights from the six showcased maisons.

BLANCPAIN

THE AIR COMMAND

The story as it is known, is that following the success of the Fifty Fathoms as a dive watch with the American Navy, Blancpain sought to provide a timepiece suitable for the Air Force in the late 1950s. The watch that was created took all of its DNA from the Fifty Fathoms and incorporated the added advantage of a flyback chronograph. This experimental watch was provided to the Air Force pilots through Blancpain’s distributor in the US, Allen V. Tornek but it was never