10 Thoughts And Observations On Watches & Wonders 2023

– By Logan Baker

I’ve been on the ground for eight to ten hours every day since Monday inside Geneva’s cavernous Palexpo convention center. I met with a majority of the 48 exhibiting brands and noticed a number of interesting facts and details that didn’t appear to be getting much attention from the traditional media outlets covering the show.

So I present to you here 10 of the biggest things I observed over the past week. I’ll be focusing primarily on the Watches & Wonders trade show itself here, so I’m skipping over all the additional exhibitions that are happening concurrently with Watches & Wonders (Time To Watches at HEAD Genève; the AHCI Exhibition at L'ice Bergues) for now, but will hopefully return to them in the coming days.

Here’s what you should know or be thinking about when reviewing all the latest releases and novelties from the participating brands and companies at Watches & Wonders 2023.

1. Have We Officially Entered The Post-Exhibition Caseback Era At Rolex?

Well known for preferring iterative evolution to drastic change, Rolex likely had three of the most surprising new watch debuts of the entire show this year. There was the new Yacht-Master in RLX titanium that stands as the first actually wearable watch from Rolex in the lightweight metal, and then there was the colorful Day-Date 36 “Jigsaw” that saw Rolex lean into the decorative – and pop culture – arts with a champlevé enamel dial and a calendar indication that doesn't show the date at all, replacing the 31 days of the month with a different emoji each day.

Finally, there was the debut of the all-new Perpetual 1908 collection, which officially replaced the erstwhile Cellini line-up as the brand’s dressiest offering. The Perpetual 1908 is a fairly charming release, with nice vintage touches including the Observatory-style hour hand and small seconds sub-dial, but it’s what’s on the other side of the watch that might change everything.

Inside the 39mm case – available in white, pink, or yellow gold – is the self-winding caliber 7140, a new movement from Rolex that combines the company’s proprietary Syloxi hairspring and Chronergy escapement for the first time. More significantly, all of this is visible through an exhibition caseback, which reveals the entire movement is decorated with a lovely Côtes de Genève finish.

Rolex has been famously averse to utilizing exhibition casebacks for years. In fact, until this year, I’m only aware of one other Rolex model to include it – the forgettable Cellini Prince from the mid-2000s. Now, it would be one thing if Rolex had left its adoption of exhibition casebacks to the Perpetual 1908 line only, but that’s not the case. There was one other Rolex released last week to include it: the new 60th anniversary Cosmograph Daytona in platinum with an ice-blue dial also has a transparent backside. Here’s where things get really interesting.

I believe Rolex could be testing the water here, by introducing sapphire crystal casebacks with its all-new flagship dress watch, as well as its updated and upgraded hero chronograph.

I wouldn’t be surprised at all if Rolex began to roll out sapphire casebacks in other collections over the next few years, as well. What does that mean for collectors? Well, you’ll get a better view of the fine-tuned engines produced by Rolex of course, but it also might see a new segmentation of the Rolex market between “pre-" and "post-" exhibition caseback eras for certain (or – dare I say – even all) models.

This isn’t something that will happen overnight, and I would expect a large number of longtime Rolex collectors would push back against it, but I believe it is something to keep an eye on in the coming years.

Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

2. Chopard Quietly Had One Of The Strongest Years Of Any Brand

Chopard isn’t a brand we hear from too often in the auction world. Phillips in Association with Bacs & Russo has sold a mere 25 watches from the brand since the formation of our department in 2014.

But the family-owned jeweler and watchmaker must be applauded for its numerous introductions at Watches & Wonders 2023.

My personal highlight from Chopard this year is a new production variant of the Alpine Eagle in titanium that’s outfitted with the company’s in-house 8 Hz self-winding movement. The new Alpine Eagle Cadence 8HF, as it’s called, represents the very first time Chopard has included the movement in a watch that is not limited in any way other than production. For fans of technical watchmaking, this is major, major news.

I’m not aware of any other non-complicated movement in current production anywhere that runs faster than 5 Hz. For Chopard to bring the caliber 01.12-C to market in a sporty and fairly accessible range such as the Alpine Eagle should be massively applauded.

Chopard’s other big men’s watch releases this year include a pair of significant salmon dial models. There’s a new 36.5mm L.U.C 1860 in Lucent steel that will appeal to any and all purists, and then there’s the thinnest Alpine Eagle yet, the XPS model that measures just 8mm in height and stands out as the inaugural Alpine Eagle to feature an L.U.C movement inside. Neither watch is limited, and both have cases made of Lucent steel, feature no date, and include a small seconds display.

What is an L.U.C caliber, you ask?

Introduced in 1996, it was home to Chopard’s debut in-house movement, the self-winding caliber 1.96, which famed watch writer Walt Odets would later go on to describe as “probably the finest automatic movement being produced in Switzerland.” It represents Chopard’s highest level of watchmaking, with an interesting architecture, excellent specs, hand finishing, COSC-certified precision, and Geneva seal-certified quality.

It’s truly fantastic to see Chopard continue to invest in and develop the L.U.C range, especially in such diversified directions.

3. Grand Seiko Solves One Of The Most Frustrating Issues With Modular Mechanical Chronographs

The big news from Grand Seiko, the lone Japanese exhibitor at Watches & Wonders 2023, was the introduction of the titanium-cased Tentagraph, the very first mechanical chronograph from the brand in its history.

It’s a highly impressive new chronograph that was only made possible through the prior development of the company’s proprietary dual-impulse escapement found inside the self-winding caliber 9SA5. The new self-winding caliber 9SC5 is a modular design, building on the base laid by the 9SA5, running at 5 Hz and offering up three days of running autonomy, as well as daily precision in the range of +5 to -3 seconds per day.

The Tentagraph is a seriously impressive release that represents a landmark achievement for Grand Seiko, demonstrating, once again, why the Japanese firm is one of the most important big label watchmakers working today. And while I’m going to stop myself from getting too nerdy with the technical details here, I did want to point out one small detail about the caliber 9SC5’s movement architecture that blew me away.

As discussed, the new movement is a modular design, meaning the chronograph mechanism is built on top of a base automatic movement rather than integrated as part of the overall construction. One negative of this approach, typically, is that it causes the crown (attached to the base movement) and pushers (attached to the chronograph module) to no longer be aligned. There’s zero issue to the functionality, but some collectors consider it to be an aesthetic eyesore, or at least indicative of a "less dignified" approach.

But if you look at a side profile of the Tentagraph, you’ll see the crown and pushers are perfectly aligned. How? Well, Grand Seiko designed the chronograph module with larger-than-usual levers that allow the pushers to remain on the same plane as the crown, rather than positioned slightly below it.

It sounds like a simple enough solution, making me wonder why no one else has attempted it before.

4. A. Lange & Söhne Is The Current Chronograph King

I already named the new A. Lange & Söhne Odysseus Chronograph as my favorite new release of the entire show, but I want to go a step further here and officially declare the German maker as the current top dog in the entire world of chronographs.

Allow me to list the many different chronographs released by the brand since it was reborn in the 1990s.

• The Datograph – the watch that many believe pushed Patek Philippe (as well as countless others) to produce their own in-house chronograph after relying on ébauches for decades and decades.

• The Double Split – the world’s first double rattrapante chronograph. Yeah.

• The 1815 Rattrapante Perpetual Calendar – A. Lange & Söhne’s first attempt at combining two of the most legendary complications

• The Grand Complication – The most complicated A. Lange & Söhne wristwatch, ever.

• The Tourbograph Perpetual 'Pour Le Mérite’ – tourbillon, chronograph, rattrapante, perpetual calendar, plus a fusée-and-chain transmission.

• The Triple Split – Fourteen years after the Double Split, A. Lange & Söhne reinvented the wheel once again, with the world’s first triple rattrapante chronograph.

• The 1815 Rattrapante – A. Lange & Söhne’s first solo rattrapante.

And now we have the Odysseus Chronograph, the first chronograph from A. Lange & Söhne to feature a central chronograph minutes and seconds hand. No other watchmaker is currently able to match the total amount of chronograph diversity and ingenuity. The closest is likely Patek Philippe, but outside last year’s 5470P, A. Lange & Söhne has them clearly beat on the innovation front.

Maybe this observation is already fairly obvious, but it wasn’t until I really thought about it that I realized how far in front of the competition A. Lange & Söhne is in the chronograph genre.

I’m hoping to go deeper into the overall collectability of each of the above chronographs in the near future, but I think it’s just fascinating how A. Lange & Söhne continues to innovate inside this rather historical genre of watchmaking.

5. Patek Philippe’s Calatrava Goes Sporty

We’ve had signs of it for a few years, including with the ref. 5000G from the 1990s and last year’s 5226G, but I really feel like this is the first year where Patek Philippe really went above and beyond in pushing the Calatrava – its most traditional watch – into the sporty realm.

The three new Calatravas I'm talking about each share the same general reference, ref. 6007, which was first seen in 2020 with the release of the limited-edition 6007A to commemorate the opening of Patek’s new factory in Plan-les-Ouates, Geneva.

Where the 2020 model was certainly a youthful and dynamic watch, with its lume-filled numerals and hour markers and cross-hatched central dial pattern, it still retained a dress-adjacent aura, which has now been totally discarded with the release of the three new ref. 6007G examples. The white-gold 40mm × 9mm watches feature a similar overall layout to the original 6007A, but now have mostly black dials, with splashes of high-contrast, highlighter colors in yellow (ref. 6007G-001), red (ref. 6007G-010), and blue (ref. 6007G-011).

The cross-hatch pattern returns, but its overall black tone causes it to closely resemble a carbon fiber texture rather than something more traditional, as seen in the previous ref. 6007A.

I believe these watches will be divisive among collectors, and I’ll admit I was on the more wary side when I initially saw the renderings. But as more live images have trickled out on social media, it’s become clear that the colors are mostly matte and seem to complement the black dial in a very effective way.

I still prefer my Calatravas to look more like the ref. 96 (thank you, ref. 6119), but I’m slowly warming up to how the ref. 6007G fits into Patek’s broader collection.

6. The New Reverso Tribute Chronograph Is The Best Jaeger-LeCoultre Release In Years

I love Jaeger-LeCoultre for its long, long history of technical watchmaking and movement development, but I know I’m not alone in being somewhat disappointed in the company’s past few years of releases. In fact, I have a hard time recalling a really, truly exceptional Jaeger-LeCoultre release priced below six figures since the mid-2010s.

That changed this year, with the introduction of the all-new Reverso Tribute Chronograph, the first Reverso Chronograph to enter production in a number of years. You can pick from either a steel or pink gold case, but both examples are full production pieces with no numerical limitation.

The front side of the watch looks like a simple Reverso with two hands and a sunburst dial (grey in the steel model; black in the gold), but flip it over and you’ll reveal the chronograph mechanism, with an open dial mostly made of sapphire crystal to expose the decorated movement components. The chronograph function measures only the elapsed seconds via a central ring, and elapsed minutes in 30-minute intervals via a retrograde minutes indicator at the bottom of the dial.

This is the same format found in the very first Reverso Chronograph, released in 1996 under the aegis of the legendary LMH executive Günter Blümlein (who famously helped revive A. Lange & Söhne in the 1990s, while also steering the ship at IWC).

The original movement in that watch, the manual-wind caliber 829, was designed by Manuel Guerin and is considered to be the first in-house integrated chronograph movement to be created by any brand after the effects of the Quartz Revolution in the 1970s and ‘80s. (A. Lange & Söhne’s Datograph would follow just three years later.) The original caliber 829 has been replaced in the 2023 version by the brand-new manual-wind caliber 860, offering up to 52 hours of running autonomy and a synchronized running time display on both sides of the dial.

The new Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso Tribute Chronograph isn’t a cheap watch at its retail price (USD $21,400, in steel; $37,400, in pink gold), but it is absolutely a great one and was a clear highlight of Watches & Wonders 2023.

7. The Laurent Ferrier Natural Escapement Is Back!

Laurent Ferrier left his tenured position at Patek Philippe to start his own eponymous label in 2009. Two years after the firm was born, they introduced their first wristwatch with a natural escapement, a lubricant-free regulating organ that was initially conceived by Breguet in the 18th century.

The natural escapement is effectively the Platonic ideal of escapement design due to its ability to self-start as well as its lack of a need for lubrication. Breguet was never able to successfully produce the natural escapement, mostly due to excessive backlash between the two escape wheels, although he produced several prototypes and versions during his lifetime, but a number of 21st century watchmakers have introduced their own take on it over the past two decades, including Ferrier, Kari Voutilainen, and F.P. Journe.

Laurent Ferrier’s is perhaps the modern-day version that mostly closely resembles Breguet’s initial invention. Ferrier appeared to solve the backlash issue faced by Breguet with the development and introduction of a detent lever made of silicon.

Ferrier enjoyed significant recognition for the achievement, but for some reason or another, the natural escapement quietly disappeared from the brand’s catalog of movements about three years ago.

And now, as of last week, the natural escapement has made a triumphant return inside two new Laurent Ferrier watches: the Galet Classic in pink gold and the Galet Square in steel, both fitted with brushed green dials that the brand refers to as “evergreen.”

8. Zenith Updates The Pilot – With A Pair Of Hidden Easter Egg

Zenith has placed a tremendous amount of energy over the past few years in updating its broad range of El Primero-powered chronographs and making sure every collector is aware of the company’s history and achievements in the chronograph category. It’s been a number of years since a different collection has been placed in the spotlight. That changed at Watches & Wonders 2023, with the first major revamp of the company's Pilot collection since the mid-2010s.

Interestingly, Zenith actually has a longer history with the Pilot collection than it does with the El Primero. The company’s founder, Georges Favre-Jacot, trademarked the term for use on watch dials in 1888, 15 years before the Wright Brothers would take off in the world’s first modern airplane. As such, Zenith is still the only company able to print the word “Pilot” on the dials of its watches. Talk about thinking ahead.

In more recent years, the Pilot collection at Zenith has leaned into its history, typically channeling a vintage design language that was informed by the Type 20 spec and the company’s association with A. Cairelli, a Roman retailer that supplied Zenith chronographs to the Italian Air Force (Aeronautica Militare Italiana) in the 1960s. Those models are now discontinued in favor of four new models (a three-hander with date and a big date flyback chronograph, both offered in either stainless steel or black ceramic), all featuring black dials with subtle horizontal grooves and white luminous Arabic numerals for the hours.

The three-hander is attractive and simple, just like a pilots’ watch should be, but the hero piece of the group is the new two-register Pilot Big Date Flyback Chronograph in black ceramic and steel. It’s worth noting that this isn’t any old date mechanism – it’s actually a first-of-its-kind design that Zenith has applied for three separate patents on and that allows for an impressively instantaneous jumping action, requiring only 0.02 seconds for the two numeral discs to change. Shuffling through the dates via the crown has an amazingly tactile feel that is unlike any other date mechanism I’ve handled (and I’ve handled a lot). A simple calendar has never been this fun.

But the true highlight for Zenith buffs will be found at the 30-minute chronograph totalizer near three o’clock. It’s framed by hints of blue, green, and yellow, ostensibly to distinguish between five-minute markers at a glance, but more importantly, it’s a callback to the cult-classic El Primero Flyback “Rainbow” from 1997 that was originally built for the French Air Force.

9. Ressence Evolves Its Type One

Ressence, the experimental Belgian independent watchmaker founded by designer Benoît Mintiens, is more than a decade old now and has released all sorts of different watches in that time, each built around the brand’s signature orbital convex time display.

This year, the company decided to go back to square one with a reinvention of one of its very first watches: the Type 1. There’s been previous evolutions of the watch’s basic design, including the Type 1 Square and Type 1 Slim – which have all now been discontinued. The new face of the franchise is the Type 1 Round, with a 42.7mm × 11mm polished titanium case featuring the fluid profile of a pebble and featuring no visible crown and wire lugs.

Available in two separate dial colors to start, the Type 1 Round is Ressence at its very best, reworked.

10. Lab Grown Diamonds Are Here To Stay

I attended a press conference held by Breitling last fall in Geneva where they officially announced a plan to introduce lab-grown diamonds into their Super Chronomat range.

I was surprised by the response from the attending jewelers in the room.

They seemed to groan, asking numerous pointed questions about the quality and purity of the new-age gemstone.

In the United States, it feels like lab-grown diamonds have been almost universally embraced. They’ve upended the market for engagement rings, and I know countless individuals that have acquired a ring, necklace, or earring featuring the manmade material. If done correctly, a lab-grown diamond has all the purity and beauty of a natural diamond, without any potential background of conflict or human suffering. It feels like a win-win to me, but it clearly didn’t feel that way to the jewelers at that press conference.

 

Well, lab-grown diamonds aren’t going anywhere. TAG Heuer continued its experimentation with the concept that began last year, with a new, six-figure Carrera with a dial and case embedded with lab-grown diamonds. It’s an impressive – and expensive – display of the material.

Oris, meanwhile, joined the conversation with its first watch to feature lab-grown diamonds, a 41.5mm stainless steel Aquis Date dive watch with a cherry red-colored dial and a bezel set with 48 Top Wesselton Grade lab-grown diamonds.

I expect we’ll see even more brands enter this growing space by Watches & Wonders 2024.

Five Favorites

1. A. Lange & Söhne Odysseus Chronograph – for reasons I explain here. 
2. Chopard Alpine Eagle Cadence 8HF – I love that Chopard finally (finally!) placed its extremely impressive high-frequency 8 Hz movement into a production Alpine Eagle. A true win for fans of technical watchmaking. 
3. Rolex GMT-Master II ref. 126718GRNR in 18k yellow gold – The combination of brushed yellow gold with the two-tone grey ceramic bezel glows in a simply amazing way. 
4. Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso Tribute Chronograph – The return of a Günter Blümlein classic, and the greatest Jaeger-LeCoultre release under six figures in years. 
5. Grand Seiko Evolution 9 Spring Drive Diver 'Ushio' SLGA023 – The best Grand Seiko dive watch is now even better looking. 

Honorable Mention: TAG Heuer Carrera Chronograph 39mm "Glassbox," Rolex Yacht-Master in RLX Titanium, Laurent Ferrier Grand Sport Tourbillon Pursuit, Tudor Black Bay Burgundy with METAS-certified movement and jubilee bracelet, Parmigiani Fleurier Tonda PF Minute Rattrapante

All images by Logan Baker unless noted. 

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About Phillips In Association With Bacs & Russo

The team of specialists at PHILLIPS Watches is dedicated to an uncompromised approach to quality, transparency, and client service. Phillips in Association with Bacs & Russo holds the world record for the most successful watch auction, with its Geneva Watch Auction: XIV having realized $74.5 million in 2021. Over the course of 2021 and 2022, the company sold 100% of the watches offered, a first in the industry, resulting in the highest annual total in history across all the auction houses at $227 million.

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About Logan Baker

Logan has spent the past decade reporting on every aspect of the watch business. He joined Phillips in Association with Bacs & Russo at the start of 2023 as the department's Senior Editorial Manager. He splits his time between New York and Geneva.

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