Designer Time

The 29th edition of Salon International de la Haute Horlogerie, last month, launched some breakthrough designs that merged tradition and technology

- Ashwin Rajagopalan

In December 2018, Fabienne Lupo, President and Managing Director of Fondation de La Haute Horlogerie that organises SIHH announced that their event would move to April from 2020. This is the last year it will keep its date in January. SIHH and Baselworld remain the two most prestigious events on the horological calendar, and these events have finally decided to sync their dates. It will make it easier for exhibitors and international visitors to attend these events in Geneva and Basel in what will become a Swiss Watch fortnight of sorts between April and May. SIHH is the newer of the two and began in 1990. Baselworld dates to 1917, with the opening of the first Schweizer Mustermesse Basel, where a section was dedicated to watches and jewellery.

The SIHH event is dominated by Richemont brands like Piaget and Vacheron Constantin. It’s the more intimate of the two with a focus on exclusivity and has recently seen prestigious brands like Hermès and Ulysse Nardin also move from Baselworld. This year again SIHH saw a slew of bespoke Swiss watches debut. Here’s our round-up of the event’s showstoppers:

Montblanc Star Legacy