Game Of Manufactures

A season of manufacture visits has followed the debut of the 2023 novelties, leading the editors of WOW Singapore and Thailand to ponder the importance of such tours and debate their own role in revealing what happens in the temples of haute horlogerie

- ASHOK SOMAN AND RUCKDEE CHOTJINDA

Inspecting watches at fairs or presentations can be a revelation. Some pieces are revealed to be inspired - incredible even. Some, not so much. It will not surprise you to learn that most are somewhere in between. As with any sort of functional object though, there is a limit to what one can learn from handling them, even if one owns many and can do so to one's heart's content. Unless you are a watchmaker, or an inveterate tinkerer, even taking wristwatches apart - and putting them back together again - can only tell you so much about how they were made.

The above also goes for talking to the watchmakers who made the timepieces in question - leaving aside the problem of actually speaking with them, you are unlikely to know the specific language they are most comfortable with. Fine watchmaking happens in Switzerland, Germany, France and Japan, after all, to cover just the usual suspects. If you want the full picture, you will need to visit the manufactures that actually make the watches. Of course, given that there are many brands with many production facilities, it is impractical for the typical collector and enthusiast to visit them all. Most of the ones we are all interested in, dear readers, are in Switzerland but they are not so easy to gain access to.

This is where magazines such as this one come in. We undertake to visit as many of these manufactures as possible, both to document our experiences and to satisfy our own curiosity. WOW Thailand editor Ruckdee Chotjinda is perhaps the most curious of us all. Now, these visits have been restricted in recent years because of the pandemic, leaving the editors of both the Singapore and Thailand editions wringing their hands in frustration. Said frustration is amplified in the supply chain-restricted post-pandemic era we find ourselves in, with collectors old and new engaging endless speculation about what happens behind the doors of the biggest watchmaking brands.