Baselworld… or the new fashion collection of watches

This month most of the big watch brands in the watch industry will show their new creations at the annual watch trade show in Basel, which is called Baselworld. Last month the Richemont brands (think: Jaeger-LeCoultre, Vacheron Constantin, Montblanc, Lange & Söhne, Cartier, etc.) had their ‘fashion show’ in Geneva during the Salon International de la Haute Horlogerie or short SIHH. Among this years novelties there where beauties and beasts, and I think the beasts outnumbered the beauties.  Let’s have a look at this year’s beauties and one ‘beast’.

Rolex gets the honor of releasing the most ‘ugly beast’ this year. The new 44 mm large Yachtmaster II features a countdown mechanism on a very busy and ‘loud’ dial. Although the ‘normal’ Yachtmaster was never one of my favourites, I definitely prefer it over this one.

My absolute number 1 of the Beauties this year, is a simple divewatch with classic looks. The Longines Legend Diver is a re-issue of a sixties compressor style Longines dive watch. The looks are very similar to its predecessor. This beauty comes in 42 mm steel case, on a vintage style synthetic black strap with white stitching. There are two crowns, one for winding and adjusting time and one for operating the inner rotating dive bezel.

Another absolute beauty in my opinion is this Officine Panerai PAM274. I’ve always loved the cusion shaped Radiomir models, but this new Radiomir GMT with 10 days movement looks even better; it’s absolutely stunning! The PAM 274 comes in a platinum case and is limited to 50 pieces. It features the in-house movement P.2003, which is an automatic movement with 3 barrels giving you 10 days of power reserve. Besides time and date, it also has a 24 hour indicator, a second timezone and a 10 days (horizontal) power reserve indicator.