GENEVA – The world’s biggest and most important watch fair ended in Geneva on April 15, clocking up record-breaking numbers.

According to the organisers, Watches And Wonders 2024 drew more than 49,000 unique visitors, a 14 per cent increase from 2023. Among them were 5,700 retailers and 1,500 journalists.

Public interest also rose. Of the 19,000 tickets available – 7,000 more than last year – 25 per cent were sold to the under-25 crowd, maintaining the average attendee age at 35, the same as in 2023.

There was also the allure of stars, from Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bundchen and K-pop idol Lee Jun-ho to Chinese star Jackson Yee and Singapore actor Desmond Tan.

Other interesting numbers? Retailers scheduled more than 10,000 appointments, up from 7,500 in the 2023 edition. For the press, watchmakers organised around 1,800 “Touch & Feel” sessions of their new timepieces, including the red-hot ones featured here.

Chanel J12 Automaton Caliber 6

Chanel wants a seat at the haute horlogerie table, and to that end, the French maison launched a total of 41 creations at Watches And Wonders 2024, including the wonderfully kooky J12 Automaton Caliber 6.

This standout piece from the Chanel Couture O’Clock collection is a homage to the maison’s founder Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel, and features an automaton animation of her making an outfit in her iconic Rue Cambon workshop. A pusher at eight o’clock brings the scene to life, animating the fashion legend as she wields a pair of dressmaker shears.

Fashioned from high-strength matt black ceramic, the 38mm watch has a diamond-set bezel and a sapphire crystal box. The details – from the tweed to the camelia motifs – are exquisite, and so, too, is the finishing. The watch is limited to 100 pieces.
Price: $337,100

Hublot Spirit of Big Bang Sang Bleu Sapphire

Swiss tattoo artist Maxime Plescia-Buchi’s third collaboration with Hublot is a geometric beauty with a 42mm barrel-shaped dial and a transparent sapphire case. 

Masterfully combining intricate shapes such as hexagons and triangles, the Spirit of Big Bang Sang Bleu Sapphire – limited to 100 pieces – has a skeletonised automatic chronograph powered by the HUB4700 movement, and boasts, among other features, a redesigned oscillating weight, a 50-hour power reserve and a date display at 4.30. 

Getting the aesthetics right apparently requires 100 hours of 3D machining.

Price: $200,600; high-jewellery versions in white gold or king gold available at $555,400

Chopard L.U.C. XPS Forest Green

Inspired by the aesthetics of the Bauhaus and Art Deco movements, Chopard’s new L.U.C. XPS Forest Green turns heads with its beautiful dark-green, sector-style dial featuring a concentric ring each for hours and minutes.

The slim 40mm case is fashioned from the watchmaker’s proprietary Lucent steel, made from recycled steel but harder and more resistant to scratches. Powering the timepiece is the ultra-thin self-winding L.U.C 96.12-L calibre, visible through a sapphire caseback.

Featuring Chopard’s twin technology and a micro-rotor made from ethical 22K gold, the movement – which is adorned with Cotes de Geneve, horology’s most famous finishing technique – is also certified by the Controle Officiel Suisse des Chronometres, the official Swiss Chronometer Testing Institute.

Price: $16,900

Zenith Defy Extreme Diver

Zenith adds two virile 42.5mm Extreme Diver watches to its Defy collection, each capable of plunging to a depth of 600m. Exuding a retro vibe, the pieces feature a blue or black sunburst dial accented with a vibrant orange rehaut.

The brushed-titanium cases feature a two-layered bezel design with glowing ceramic and steel. Beating within is the high-frequency El Primero 3620 SC movement – which has a 60-hour power reserve – that is visible through the exhibition caseback. Both models come with three interchangeable straps.

Price: $16,400

Grand Seiko Kodo Constant-force Tourbillon

In 2022, Grand Seiko unveiled the Kodo Constant-force Tourbillon, a revolutionary watch that combined a tourbillon and a constant-force mechanism as one unit on a single axis. It bagged the Chronometry Prize at that year’s Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Geneve, the Oscars of the horological world.

While that watch evoked the beauty of twilight, this new model artfully uses light and shadow to conjure up the majesty of sunrise. For instance, the silver-toned movement and use of blue sapphires – a first for the Japanese luxury watchmaker – reflect the pale hues of dawn. 

The case is constructed from a mix of Platinum 950 and Brilliant Hard Titanium, and houses the Caliber 9ST1, which is innovatively designed to prevent torque loss. It is fitted with a special white leather strap, echoing the traditional craftsmanship used in samurai armour.

Price: €385,000 (about S$558,000)

Piaget Altiplano Ultimate Concept Tourbillon

Piaget – which kick-started the trend for ultra-slim movements in 1957 with the 2.3mm Calibre 12P automatic movement – has broken another record with the new Piaget Altiplano Ultimate Concept. At 41.5mm by 2mm, the timepiece has just snatched the title of world’s thinnest tourbillon from Bvlgari’s Octo Finissimo Tourbillon.

Sporting a cobalt-blue case with a PVD finish, the watch’s heart is the calibre 970P-UC, a movement which is not only equipped with a one-minute peripheral tourbillon at 10 o’clock, but also boasts a robust 40-hour power reserve.

To accommodate a tourbillon which requires 25 per cent more power from its mainspring, Piaget redesigned 90 per cent of the movement with components merged seamlessly into the caseback.

Price: Upon request

Ulysse Nardin Freak S Nomad

In 2001, Ulysse Nardin stunned watch lovers with the Freak, a timepiece which used silicon and did away with traditional features such as dials, hands and crowns. That watch has spawned several iterations, with the 2023 Freak One bagging the iconic Watch Prize at Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Geneve.

The latest incarnation is the Freak S Nomad, dubbed a “laboratory on the wrist” by the watchmaker. 

It sports a 45mm anthracite PVD-coated titanium case and houses the UN-251 Manufacture movement, which displays time via a one-hour orbital flying carousel and a sand-coloured rotating disc with a hand-finished diamond guilloche pattern.

The “Grinder” automatic winding system does a fine job of charging the 72-hour power reserve with minimal wrist movements.

Price: $216,800

Van Cleef & Arpels Brise d’Ete 

One of the most enchanting timepieces at the 2024 Watches And Wonders is this 38mm white-gold stunner. Adorned with diamonds, it bewitches with a dial painstakingly fashioned from mother-of-pearl, tsavorite and spessartite garnets. It is finished with various enamelling techniques, including plique-a-jour, champleve and vallonne.

The watch boasts a self-winding mechanical movement with an automaton that, when activated, sees butterflies fluttering along with blooming flowers. This animation lasts 12 seconds, with the butterflies floating back into place to indicate the hour on a retrograde scale. 

An orange butterfly disarmingly indicates the hours during the first half of the day, with a blue one taking over during the second half. The watch is a numbered edition which will hit stores in October.

Price: $253,000

Vacheron Constantin Berkley Grand Complication

Vacheron Constantin revealed a record-breaker at the watch fair: a one-of-a-kind mechanical wonder that boasts an unprecedented 63 complications.

The watch puts in the shade its predecessor – the 57260, which had 57 complications. The owner of both watches is American billionaire W.R. Berkley, an insurance magnate who is also chairman of the board of trustees at New York University.

Specially commissioned by him, the Berkley Grand Complication took three watchmakers 11 years to design. Assembly took another year – and for good reason. Comprising 2,877 components, the creation is the first to incorporate a traditional Chinese perpetual calendar (which took 11 complications), precisely tracking zodiac signs and other celestial influences until 2200. 

Jaeger-LeCoultre Duometre Chronograph Moon

Jaeger-LeCoultre has dropped two Duometre Chronograph Moon models, crafted in either platinum with a salmon dial or elegant pink gold with a silver dial.

The timepieces merge a chronograph and a moon phase display powered by the new Calibre 391, and boast features including dual barrels and independent gear trains to ensure precision without disrupting the escapement’s power.

The movement’s technical prowess is conveyed through the impressively decorated counters: chronograph and moon phase at two o’clock, hour-minute and day/night indicator at nine o’clock, central seconds in blue sweeping the tachometric scale around the circumference of the dial and a seconde foudroyante at six o’clock.

A foudroyante seconds hand jumps in fraction-of-a-second intervals, making a 360-degree revolution per second.

Price: $127,000 (platinum), $103,000 (pink gold)