By Cynthia Unninayar

The January winter weather may have been cold outside, but the ambiance inside the exclusive Geneva-based Salon International de la Haute Horlogerie was warm and upbeat.

According to show officials, “The attendance recorded by the 19 exhibiting brands was up, as were the business volumes—the signs of a recovery that began at the turn of the year…While 2009 will be remembered above all as a year marked by a global economic crisis that did not spare Fine Watchmaking, the next twelve months are likely to be a completely different vintage. The increase in attendance recorded at the 2010 SIHH—despite greater selectiveness in extending invitations—is a very clear sign of this. The number of visitors was 10 percent up over last year at 12,500. Of these, 1,200 were representatives of the international media.”

While we will not go into detail on the various aspects of watchmaking shown at the SIHH—we leave that to our sister publication, Europa Star—it was clear that the brands have gone back to a form of classicism and traditional values, with a special emphasis on the ages-old decorative art forms such as enamelling, marquetry, engraving, lacquer work, and of course stone-setting. In terms of traditional watchmaking, the byword of the show was “thin” as in all the “ultra-thin” movements presented by a number of brands this year.

Here, we will highlight some of the brands that create remarkable jewellery watches as well as some that also produce jewellery. After all, a beautiful jewellery watch is indeed a piece of adornment. This year, Van Cleef & Arpels offers poetry in motion with its Extraordinary Dials collection. Created with enamelling, mother-of-pearl inlay, stonesetting, and gold engraving techniques, each dial tells a story. In the Lady Arpels Extraordinary Hummingbirds piece, Van Cleef pays homage to these delicate little birds as they flit among the flowers. Inspiration for these remarkable dials comes in part from the brand’s California Reverie jewellery collection.

In another example where poetry meets timekeeping, the Pasha de Cartier embraces a daring skeleton movement dedicated to the animal kingdom, one of the brand’s favourite sources of inspiration. In this piece, the diamond-set bridges of the mechanical movement have been delicately worked in lightweight transparency to form an exotic panther’s head whose emerald eyes gaze stoically at the wearer.

Piaget takes a more musical approach with its new Limelight Jazz Party collection, where watches and jewellery harmonize in dazzling improvisations. In one of the secret watches in this collection, made of white gold, diamonds, and onyx, the cover opens to display the time, or closes to become a dazzling bracelet. Roger Dubuis creates feminine beauty in motherof- pearl, diamonds, and sapphires set in a case made of titanium and pink gold. Its new line of Cirque jewellery in pink gold and diamond creates a nice complement to the watches.

When it comes to sophisticated colour, however, Jaeger-LeCoultre garnered a lot of attention with its precious gemstone full pavé Reverso Squadra. Richard Mille also treated the ladies to a variety of colours with automatic watches set with sapphires, emeralds, and diamonds. The SIHH will hold its 21st edition in Geneva next winter, from January 17 to 21, 2011.

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