Editor’s Note
This article provides an overview of Geneva Watch Days, a decentralized industry event founded by eight leading watch brands. The fair, supported by local Geneva authorities, showcases new releases from prestigious watchmakers.
Geneva Watch Days is a watch industry trade show founded in September 2020 by eight prestigious watch brands: Breitling, Bulgari, De Bethune, Girard-Perregaux, H. Moser & Cie., MB&F, Ulysse Nardin and Urwerk. The industry salon took place throughout last week with a plethora of new releases from some of the industry’s most prestigious watchmakers. Held in partnership with the Canton and City of Geneva, with the support of the Geneva Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Services (CCIG), the fair is aimed at retailers and media, while being fully open to the public. Let’s discover the most surprising models from this year’s exhibition: the third edition of Geneva Watch Days and the largest to date.
MB&F presented the Horological Machine N°9 ‘Sapphire Vision’ (HM9-SV), a complex watch that combines the classic style of the 40s and 50s with contemporary technological advances. This version represents an evolution of the ‘HM9 Flow’, launched in 2018.
There are already six editions of the HM9 Sapphire Vision, with different colors and materials. In 2023, two new editions were presented, limited to only five pieces each: one with a white gold case and blue CVD movement, and another with a yellow gold case and green engine.
Urwerk, the independent brand created by Martin Frei and Felix Baumgartner, attracts with its futuristic designs and original way of representing time. For Geneva Watch Days, Urwerk proposed a sparkling version of the watch with diamond inlays, the UR-100V Stardust.
As one of the brand’s most wearable and “smaller-sized” models, the UR-100V case has a width of 41 mm, a length of 49.7 mm, and a thickness of 14 mm.
The central part of the steel case, set with 400 brilliant-cut diamonds, is not the only surface of the watch covered in stars; the large noon crown is set with 24 diamonds, as is the sandblasted steel buckle which shines with the light of 22 diamonds.
Protected by the ultra-domed sapphire crystal is Urwerk’s characteristic system of three rotating satellites to display the hours and minutes along a 120-degree arched track, highlighted here with luminous minute markers in blue and white.
Darker than black: H. Moser & Cie. combines its ingenious flying tourbillon with double hairspring with the blackest material known to man: Vantablack. Beneath a gently domed sapphire crystal, the slender leaf-shaped hands appear to float over the total blackness of the extraordinary Vantablack dial.
A material invented from the requirements of science and aviation, Vantablack is a fragile coating of tens of thousands of tiny nanotubes, which together absorb almost completely, rather than reflect, light.
The Endeavour Tourbillon watch in white gold with a Vantablack dial is the epitome of “less is more”, where the stunning black dial, without logo, markers or adornments, gives way to the hypnotic tourbillon.
The blackness and purity of the dial accentuate the exquisite flying tourbillon, which also rotates in a strange suspension and dominates the lower half of the dial.
Greubel Forsey presented a new generation of carbon watches. This material becomes part of the Workshop’s collections, offering collectors enhanced lightness and strength.
The carbon case, as developed by Greubel Forsey, requires pressure 8 times higher than average. On the dial, a three-dimensional and curved profile allows the movement to express itself freely and fully.
This is why you will find finishes, from satin to matte and relief engraving on the Double Balancier Convexe, all complementing the natural work of the carbon fibers that Greubel Forsey has strived to match with the convergence lines of the Convexe case.
(Note: The original content for this section was incomplete, consisting only of the title and brand name. No descriptive text was provided to translate.)
