Rolex remains the king of Swiss watches, with more than a 30 per cent share of the market in 2023, according to new research by the investment bank Morgan Stanley and consultants LuxeConsult.
“No other luxury brand can claim such a dominant position in its respective sector,” they say in a new report.
Rolex’s market share is more than next five biggest brands combined: Cartier (8 per cent), Omega (7 per cent), Patek Philippe (6 per cent) Audemars Piguet (5 per cent) and Richard Mille (3 per cent).
Rolex’s revenue for the year are estimated at $11.43bn (CHF 10.1bn). It sold an estimated 1.24m watches last year, at an average cost of $13,832 (CHF 12,218). Second-placed Cartier sold 660,00 watches at an average cost of $6,467 (CHF 5,712).
Total sales of Swiss watches last year returned to pre-Covid levels, up 7.6 per cent year-on-year to $30.23bn (CHF 26.7bn).
Jacob & Co. unveiled its $20 million Billionaire Timeless Treasure Yellow Diamond watch on Monday in Geneva, concurrent with the Watches & Wonders Geneva 2023 exhibition. The complex tourbillon timepiece is totally ensconced in 425 Asscher-Cut Fancy Yellow and Intense Yellow diamonds. The feat of simply collecting and cutting all of the highest color and quality of matching diamonds alone took three and a half years.
This is not the first Billionaire watch the brand has built. In fact, in 2015 it released its first Billionaire watch bedecked with 260 carats of white diamonds. Three years later, in 2018, Floyd Mayweather bought a Billionaire watch (only 21 have been made since 2015, with all of them selling except for one) for $18 million. The brand then unveiled, also in 2018, its $6 million yellow diamond Millionaire watch with 127 carats of intense yellow diamonds. But that wasn’t enough for this independently owned and operated jewelry and watch brand. Thee needed to take each of those renditions to new heights.
When it was determined that the brand would move forward with this timepiece, ten top-notch gemologists scoured the Earth for enough perfectly matched rare diamonds. In the end, the brand purchased 880 carats of rough yellow diamonds and had them cut over the course of several years into what would end up being individual Asscher-cut stones weighing 216.89 carats total. Just the studying of the rough diamonds and the cutting and polishing took thousands of hours.
The Asscher Cut, invented during the Art Deco era, is a square diamond with clipped or angled corners that offers a nice open view into the stone. The Asscher Cut diamonds on this watch boast 57 facets on the edges and the crown sits higher, so more rough stone is needed than for, say, a brilliant-cut stone. As such, there was more diamond-waste to creating the Asscher Cuts, according to the brand.
Renani Jewels (India) has broken the dazzling Guinness World Records title for the most diamonds set on a watch in Meerut, India as verified on 29 December 2022.
The construction of this sparkly piece of jewellery started with hand drawn sketches to work out the design of the watch.
After the initial design was finalized, it was recreated in 3D as a computer-aided-design (CAD) and then printed.
All the diamonds were then meticulously placed onto the watch and it took five different forms of polishing to give it the desired look.
The watch is named Srinkia – the watch of good fortunes. Inspired by ancient Indian mythology, Srinkia means flower.
According to founder and CEO Harshit Bansal, it also signifies the Indian goddess of wealth and good fortunes – Lakshmi.
The end watch has 17,512 white diamonds and 12 black diamonds.
This beat the previous record set by Aaron Shum Jewelry Ltd. (Hong Kong) with 15,858 diamonds back in December 2018.
These diamonds were authenticated by an International Gemological Institute Lab (IGI) certificate to determine that actual diamonds were used.
The main challenge faced by Renani Jewels was the procurement of a huge quantity of diamonds with the same colour, size, shape and clarity.
To verify the record, each individual diamond had to be counted in the presence of a jewellery and diamond expert.
In accordance with GWR’s guidelines, the diamond had to be sourced from producers that are certified by the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (KPCS), which prevents “conflict” diamonds from entering the mainstream market.
The end watch weighs 373.30 grams and is completely wearable.
Diamond records have proved popular in India, with the most diamonds set on a ring being broken by SWA Diamonds last May.
AP is amping up the bling with a series of watches decked out entirely in precious stones.
It’s raining bling! Audemars Piguet CEO François-Henri Bennahmias isn’t holding back before his impending departure from the brand in 2023. Instead, true to his persona, he’s upping the ante for the Q4 celebrations of the Royal Oak’s 50th anniversary with a flashy lineup of 20 Royal Oak Selfwinding Rainbow pieces (10 in 41 mm and 10 in 37 mm) fully set—from the dial to the bezel to the case to the bracelet—in emeralds, rubies, tourmalines, tanzanites, tsavorites, chrysoberyls and spessartites. Unlike other “rainbow” watches, these are arranged in monochrome settings such as a fully yellow chrysoberyl-set version to one dressed in solid rubies.
Adding to the difficulty in setting the variations of stones is that each watch had to be adjusted according to the typology, hardness and other specifics according to the makeup of each type of stone. The baguette stones were also cut in 179 different sizes for the 41 mm version and 153 different sizes for the 37 mm iteration before being hand-polished.
To make sure the stones covered as much surface as possible, Audemars Piguet and Salanitro arranged them in an invisible setting—a jewelry technique in which as little metal as possible is revealed around the gems to give the appearance that they are floating—on the dial and bracelet links. To achieve this, tiny grooves were cut into the 18-karat white gold cases with the stones attached inside via hidden rails mounted in the metal. This kind of setting is notoriously difficult and only 10 out of 80 artisans at Salanitro’s studio are able to complete the task. They worked for a month and a half on the setting alone for each set.
The AP’s Royal Oak Selfwinding Rainbows contain the caliber 4309 for the 41 mm version—the most recent self-winding hours, minutes and seconds movement in this diameter—and the Caliber 5909 for the 37 mm model. The 5909 is based on the Caliber 5900, which first appeared this year in other Royal Oaks of the same case size. Like other 50th anniversary editions, these will also come with a 22-carat pink gold oscillating rotor that spells out “50 years.” The Audemars Piguet logo and “Swiss Made” label have been cautiously printed on the sapphire crystal so as not to interfere with the gems.
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MB&F founder Max Büsser is leaning into his female clientele. Back in 2018, during a sneak peek of his first ladies’ watch, the LM FlyingT, he admitted to Robb Report that he was unsure of his ability to design for women. “Men don’t understand women,” he said, “so I thought, ‘How am I going to do this?’ ”That may sound like an antiquated notion of gender norms, but the watch itself was anything but conventional.
Its futuristic design was unlike anything on the market and proved to be such a hit the company has since launched seven versions. The eighth, a collaboration with Bulgari that debuts at the end of November, may be its biggest headliner yet.
The joint design was born out of a friendship between Büsser and Fabrizio Buonamassa Stigliani, Bulgari’s creative director of watches. Both have a penchant for bucking tradition and are known for housing extraordinarily inventive mechanics in out-of-the-box designs.
The new 39 mm-by-20 mm LM FlyingT Allegra uses the same vertically built 3-D movement (it features a flying tourbillon on the upper end of the axis) and space-age domed case design as the original but now comes decked out in Italian opulence.
A system of large, colorful gems orbit the tourbillon, all set within a galaxy of diamonds covering the mainplate; the combination of stones—which include tsavorite, topaz, amethyst, tanzanite, rubellite and tourmalin.
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With more than 200 years of watchmaking expertise, Vacheron Constantin – the oldest, continually operating Swiss watch brand has a lot of archives to turn to for inspiration.
That is exactly what it did when the brand opted to release a new timepiece to its Heures Creatives collection.
Today, Vacheron Constantin unveils the highly sophisticated and somewhat dramatic new Heures Creatives Heure Romantique ladies’ watch.
With this new diamond-set 18 karat gold ultra feminine timepiece, Vacheron Constantin not only showcases its ability to embrace the past and translate it to today with ease, but also deftly demonstrates its watchmaking and gem-setting expertise.
The new flower-shaped watch with great curves recalls the Art Nouveau era in its shape and its setting.
The watch boasts a striking black mother of pearl dial with beautiful striations and highly stylized Roman numerals within the arabesques.
It is meticulously set with diamond brilliants on the case, case sides, and leaf like lugs using a prong setting that was prevalent in the early 1920’s and ‘30’s and that is still relevant today.
In fact, the 18 karat white gold watch boasts a total of 104 diamonds set on two levels of the case for stunning appeal.
Even the white gold folding clasp and the crown are set with diamonds – for a total of 123 stones weighing 2.6 carats.
As if the diamonds and the meticulous setting which takes an artisan hundreds of hours to complete Vacheron Constantin also adds finely engraved small gold beads to the entire circumference of the case, with another row of beads outlining the diamonds on the case.
This incredible detailing takes dozens of hours of work and is barely noticeable from a distance. However, Vacheron Constantin would have it no other way. The brand is a stickler for details.
The Heure Romantique ladies’ watch features diamonds set on two levels, as well as the leaf-shaped VACHERON CONSTANTIN
The Heures Creatives Heure Romantique watch, which was inspired by a 1916 archival piece that was created with an all diamond bracelet, joins Vacheron Constantin’s Heures Creatives collection.
The series was started five years ago in 2015, with the first watches released being a trilogy of watches inspired by the Belle Epoque era and forward through the 1970’s.
Looking at this elegant watch, one would guess it to be fitted with a quartz movement. However, Vacheron Constantin prides itself on its watchmaking as well as its artistic craftsmanship.
This watch is more than just a beautiful statement piece, it also boasts a top notch in-house-made mechanical movement.
Powered by the extremely thin manual winding Caliber 1055, with 115 individual components and 21 jewels, the petite watch boasts 40 hours of power reserve.
It is finished with a black satin strap perfect for any black-tie soiree. The watch retails for $54,500.
At the Geneva Watch Days event in late August, Ulysse Nardin unveiled a new collection called Blast. The collection featured timepieces with a new, self-winding, skeletonized caliber with a flying tourbillon; a multifaceted case design inspired by the lines of stealth aircraft; and a new “one-click” folding clasp. A week later, Ulysse Nardin introduced another Blast reference, positioned as a high-end jewelry timepiece, whose open worked, automatic tourbillon movement, as well as its case, are embellished with geometrically cut diamonds in a motif reminiscent of a mosaic.
The new Sparkling Blast is limited to three pieces and has a 45-mm-diameter, white-gold case, with either a white-colored rubber strap or a deep blue-colored alligator strap. Each watch is adorned with a total of 211 hand-faceted diamonds across the case, crown, bezel, indexes, and hands; 85 of those diamonds are uniquely cut, giving the timepiece a total weight of 13 carats. The X-shaped cage on the open worked dial is also set with an array of diamonds, directly embedded into the architecture of this “shape-within-shape-within-shape” of the watch face, to highlight the large “X” framed inside the rectangle, itself framed inside the circle of the bezel.
The X-shaped cage on the openworked dial is set with an array of diamonds.
Ulysse Nardin says that the design of the case middle and its distinctive triple lugs borrows its “aligned edges and serrated triangular patterns” from the silhouettes of the wings found on stealth fighter jets, which make them invisible to radar and radio waves.
Each case, crown, bezel and index is adorned with hand-faceted diamonds; the watch has 211 diamonds in all.
The diamonds are set using an “invisible setting” technique that originated in France 200 years ago. In this setting, the diamonds are held in place by a hidden structure, which creates a floating appearance inside the metal ring but is invisible from the surface.
The self-deploying buckle is adorned with 1.22k of diamonds.
Like the Executive Skeleton Tourbillon and the other Blast models that preceded it, the new Sparkling Blast reference is powered by the skeletonized Caliber UN-172. This movement is an upgraded version of Ulysse Nardin’s existing Caliber 171, updated to feature a platinum micro-rotor, visible from the front at 12 o’clock, which is the silicon mainspring’s source of power, automatically winding it to amass a power-reserve up to three days (72 hours). Inside the movement is a 2.5-Hz silicon flying automatic tourbillon. Of the movement’s 137 components, 23 of them belong to the tourbillon.
The Ulysse Nardin Sparkling Blast retails for CHF 410,000 on either a white-colored rubber strap or a deep blue-and-white-colored leather strap, with a self-deploying buckle adorned with 1.22k of diamonds. The array of diamonds set on each timepiece comply with the World Diamond Council System of Warranties to ensure that no “conflict diamonds” enter the supply chain.
Diamonds have the power to transform the look of a watch completely. It can give sportive watches a touch of elegance, where it makes quite a difference if the understated baguette-cut is selected, or the more vibrant brilliant cut, while a mixture of both has an appeal of its own as well. For Hublot, diamonds are part of the ‘Art of Fusion,’ as they seamlessly integrate them in the following four stunning watches;
Spirit of Big Bang High Jewelry As can be expected from a brand like Hublot, does it not settle for just an ordinary setting when decorating one of their watches with diamonds. This Spirit of Big Bang is the perfect example of this. Hublot took different shapes and sizes of diamonds and set them in the case, dividing each with a white gold rim that holds the gemstone. Such a setting is extremely difficult to accomplish, especially on the already complex case shape of the Spirit of Big Bang. The result is breathtaking, as it looks like cracked ice with an ice-hole at the bottom through which we don’t see water, but a tourbillon.
Classic Fusion Aerofusion Chronograph High Jewelry It is improbable that James Bond will ever sport a diamond-set watch on the big screen, but when he does, this Classic Fusion Aerofusion Chronograph High Jewelry might be perfect. It is another watch in which Hublot utilizes a very complex setting, creating an effect very much like the gun barrel sequence at the start of each James Bond movie. It gives the Classic Fusion Aerofusion Chronograph a very dynamic look, not commonly associated with a diamond-set watch. Hublot went even as far as setting the skeletonized dial with diamonds, another feature not easy to accomplish. It is offered in white gold, but also in King gold, where it shows a different side of its character.
Big Bang MP-11 High Jewellery The Big Bang MP-11 imposes with its seven series-coupled mainspring barrels, which give the watch a power reserve of 14-days. As they are horizontally aligned at the bottom of the movement, the sapphire crystal has a slight dome to accommodate them underneath. The case has this dome also, and while already stunning in the regular edition, the High Jewellery version is even more breathtaking. Here Hublot opted for a very close setting of baguette-cut diamonds, which make it look like most of the watch is made out of a solid gemstone.
Hublot Big Bang Tourbillon Power Reserve 5 Days High Jewellery Sometimes you want it all, with both the watch and the bracelet completely set with diamonds. The Hublot Big Bang Tourbillon Power Reserve 5 Days High Jewellery offers just that, combined with a generous five-day power reserve and a tourbillon. The watch is set in such an exquisite way that hardly any part of the white gold case and bracelet shows. To achieve this, Hublot used 1.574 diamonds, with a total carat weight of 84.90. The fun part of this watch is that it also comes with Hublot’s patented ‘One-click system,’ which enables you to switch between the diamond set bracelet and a rubber or alligator strap in a matter of seconds.
