Messages: 51 Location: Los Angeles
Registered: February 2005
Is the industry out of ideas? Seemed so at Baselworld
Thu, 05 April 2018 18:38
People are lamenting the falling attendance...well, I can't remember a show on a slower morphine drip. Let's summarize the big "announcements:"
Rolex - comes out with, gasp, a Pepsi GMT! Only been done a zillion times before. At least the Daytona reboot looks quite different from its predecessors. This one screams lazy.
Patek Phillipe - the highlight was a 40k chronograph on a rubber strap no less - but orange. And it doesn't even have multiple registers.
Grand Seiko - more retro limited editions in the same conservative style. I care about the 20th anniversary of the 9s as an horological event - said no one.
Tudor - a pepsi GMT so people can think they own a Rolex without owning one? what happened to watches like the Black Bay Bronze that made it a true brand, not nepotism
Omega - yet another forgettable "...of the Moon" watch (the original reins supreme still) and they put out (another) dull vintage offering in the 1948 Limited
Blancpain - oh boy, another 70s retro watch that happens to look bad too. seriously, can't we think of anything new?
Breguet - who knew a Breguet could actually be ugly ie. the Marine that doesn't look like a Breguet
I'll give Zenith some slack as at least the Defy is an innovative movement...and Nomos tried with the Autobahn, but just didn't succeed.
Am I the only one that doesn't want 40 and 50-year old retreads?
Messages: 3380 Location: Texas
Registered: December 2003
Funny. The list you made rather makes me wish even more that I had not missed Baselworld 2018 ;)
Thu, 05 April 2018 19:12
I have been beating myself for not making it to the event this year and you just made it even more crystal clear that I did in fact miss a great show. One of the best in recent memory actually.
Messages: 3383 Location: U.S.
Registered: November 2006
My exact sentiments...
Thu, 05 April 2018 20:02
I heard they ran out of good champagnes this year at the show. Instead they served Pepsi, Root Beer...and diet Pepsi. People go crazy. And somehow Moser knew it...
Well if you're not a Pepsi guy, wait for next year; they'll be serving Coke drinks, including a Coke Zero.
"The fact that the mechanism is quite unnecessary merely adds to its charm." - George Daniels
Maybe in this world of 24x7 the watch industry hosts Basel every 3 years? They can have "surprises" in between but gives them some space to really deliver some goods.
agree 100%, especially Rolex. complete lack of imagination this year
Thu, 05 April 2018 20:56
slap an existing dress watch Jubilee bracelet and a new color bezel on a GMTII and people foam at the mouth!
I was totally underwhelmed by this year's Basel, it's almost like they have a feeling that the smart watch world is taking over, and they're just rolling over letting themselves die.
Messages: 25859 Location: Australia
Registered: November 2003
Design-wise, many companies seem to have been out of...
Thu, 05 April 2018 23:23
...(good) ideas for quite some time, perhaps going on a couple of decades, (my opinion, of course). It's been revamping of vintage designs with incremental changes, not always for the better. So many of the watches being offered these days stem from designs of the 1940s, 50s & 60s. Even the 1970s, a period many might consider to have been poo'd upon from a great height by the Watch Design Gods, is now being mined for its more palatable designs. All too many of the newer design efforts have appeared to me to be little less than awful - non-descript would be a compliment. I feel that movement development has moved forward, though.
Messages: 393 Location: santa monica, ca
Registered: June 2007
somewhat agree here
Fri, 06 April 2018 10:29
I just replied on a thread about the new Breitling SuperOcean Heritage II, and how the "updates" really don't do much. It looks exactly the same as the last one (to me), so why even put all the pomp and circumstance around it.
At least you can tell the difference between a 16710 and the new Rolex 6-digit Pepsi (ceramic bezel with not exactly the same coloring as the 5-digit, bigger case, stronger bracelet, etc), and though Tudor released a Pepsi look-a-like, it is a totally new watch for them.
Iterations and small changes here and there are what we can expect in the world of mechanical watches; if you want massive changes, go the digital watch route.
