Watch Features

Welcome to WatchTime’s watch features section. Here you will find watch feature stories, watch reports, interesting watch technology coverage, interviews with watch brands, background articles about watches, watch brands and technical stories.

Watch Sales Down Again for Japan’s Big Three

Results for the fiscal year ended March 31 show that watch sales at Japan’s Big Three watch firms slumped for the second consecutive year as the Great Recession continued to suppress demand for mid-priced watches. Nevertheless, the watch divisions at Citizen, Seiko and Casio remained profitable. For the companies as a whole, only the Citizen...

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Jun 13, 2010 by Joe Thompson

It’s Time – WatchTime New York 2024 Tickets On Sale Now!

After an incredible show in 2023, WatchTime New York, the premier collector’s event in North America, is set to return to Manhattan from October 18th to 20th, 2024. WatchTime New York 2024 promises to be even more spectacular, with the show marking the 25th anniversary of WatchTime and bringing together the world’s finest watchmakers, timepieces,...

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Jun 20, 2024 by WatchTime

Past Forward

Enthusiasts and collectors know Michel Parmigiani’s eponymous Fleurier-based brand. Less well known is his work as a master restorer of historical treasures. Trusted by leading collectors and museums, the Parmigiani atelier brings wonders from the past back to life, employing wide-ranging skills, and a bit of sleuthing.

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May 23, 2010 by WatchTime

What’s the Most Valuable Watch Brand? And Just How Valuable Is It?

Each year the Millward Brown Optimor consulting firm issues a ranking of the world’s top brands. MBO uses a complex formula to estimate a brand’s worth. Only one brand whose primary product is watches made the list: Rolex. MBO estimates that Geneva-based Rolex is the world’s sixth most valuable luxury brand with a value of...

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May 9, 2010 by Joe Thompson

“Mad” About ’60s Watches

The fourth season of AMC TV’s Emmy-award-winning drama series Mad Men premieres in late July, and the show’s fans have the date circled. The series, which follows the lives and careers of Madison Avenue advertising executives in 1960s New York, has not only wowed critics and fueled revivals of that era’s fashions and classic cocktails...

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May 2, 2010 by Mark Bernardo

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Watch Company Financial Results for 2009

For the most part, the Great Recession of 2009 pretty much mugged corporate sales and profits. In the watch sector, for example, the Bulgari and Movado groups reported red ink for the year. But there were exceptions to the battered sales and profits syndrome. Fossil, for one, had its most profitable year ever. Here’s a...

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Apr 11, 2010 by Joe Thompson

PALACE COUP: Jean Dunand’s Newest Watch is a Tribute to the Industrial Revolution

What sets Jean Dunand apart from other luxury watch brands — aside from its extremely limited production and lofty price points — is the fact that each collection has a totally different look, with no “house style” and very few unifying brand characteristics. The only common principle behind each Jean Dunand model, as voiced by...

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Apr 4, 2010 by Mark Bernardo

Panerai: A Tribute to Galileo Galilei

It’s a short walk from Galileo’s Florence residence to the spot where, centuries later, Giovanni Panerai opened the city’s first watch workshop. During his life Galileo tackled several time-measurement problems, devising a system to calculate longitude at sea using Jupiter’s moons as a celestial clock and doing fundamental work on isochronism. Four centuries later,...

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Mar 14, 2010 by WatchTime

The Man Behind the Brand: George Graham

Sixteen years ago, two young men born and raised in the Swiss watch town of La Chaux-de-Fonds and working in the watch industry teamed up with the notion of getting their own watch brand. The question confronting Eric Loth and Pierre-André Finazzi was which brand? The Swiss names they wanted, they couldn’t afford. The French...

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Mar 1, 2010 by Joe Thompson

Geneva Unconventionals

Every year, Richemont Group’s luxury watch brands, plus a handful of large, independent brands, exhibit their new watches at SIHH in Geneva’s labyrinthine Palexpo Center. This year, 38 small, independent watch brands put on their own show called the Geneva Time Exhibition (GTE) at the International Geneva Conference Center, in the heart of downtown, near...

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Feb 21, 2010 by Mark Bernardo

Vacheron Constantin La Symbolique des Laques: 600 Years In The Making

At SIHH, Vacheron Constantin unveiled the new Métiers d’Art collection, La Symbolique des Laques. The collection combines two ancient arts: watchmaking and maki-e. Vacheron, which dates to 1755, joins with Japanese maki-e masters Zôhiko, founded in 1661 and together, their more than 600 years of history combine to produce these masterpieces of functional art.

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Feb 15, 2010 by WatchTime

BNB: RIP

Movement maker BNB Concept is out of business. But its founder, and many of its watchmakers, have found a new gig.

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Feb 1, 2010 by Norma Buchanan

THE MAN BEHIND THE BRAND: Daniel JeanRichard

(This is the first of a series of articles on historical watchmakers whose names have been revived as contemporary watch brands.) In 1986, Luigi (Gino) Macaluso, a Swiss watch distributor in Italy, bought the rights to the name Daniel JeanRichard from Lemania, the Swiss movement manufacturer. Daniel JeanRichard was not a watch brand. It is...

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Jan 16, 2010 by Joe Thompson

Beyond Tiger: Watches, Celebs, and Scandal

If, in the wake of the Tiger Woods scandal, you were wondering about the status of his endorsement deal with TAG Heuer, you need only check the company’s Web site for the answer. As this is written, the TAG Heuer home page features a statement from brand CEO Jean-Christophe Babin that “The partnership with Tiger...

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Dec 28, 2009 by Mark Bernardo

1969: Seiko’s Breakout Year

When it comes to anniversaries, the once generally ignored 40 is the new 50. This year has been marked by a parade of 40th anniversary bashes: Woodstock, the moon landing, and in watches, the legendary Zenith El Primero movement. Now, with two weeks left in the year, there is still one monster anniversary to go...

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Dec 20, 2009 by Joe Thompson

Collector to the Rescue: Hartmut Kraft Reboots Chronoswiss North America

Re-launching a brand that has stumbled is difficult in a good economy. Imagine starting the process in October, 2008. That prospect lay before new Chronoswiss North America president Hartmut Kraft. Facing the worst economic downturn in decades, Kraft devised a plan to turn the North American market around. WatchTime traces Kraft’s progression from young watch...

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Dec 7, 2009 by WatchTime

Omega President Stephen Urquhart: The WatchTime Interview

With its marketing blitz for the 40th anniversary Moon Watch, the opening of its own boutique on New York’s fashionable Fifth Avenue, and the long-term renewal of its official Olympic timing deal, 2009 has been a big year for Swiss-watch powerhouse Omega. WatchTime recently conducted an exclusive interview with the brand’s president, Stephen Urquhart, in...

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Nov 30, 2009 by Mark Bernardo

What Are These Guys Up To?

TechnoMarine made a big splash a decade ago. A new team is hoping to do it again. The image of (left to right) Christian Viros, Vincent Perriard, and Steven Cohen, nearly up to their necks in water, is designed to make us wonder what these three bobbing Pep Boys are up to. The image is...

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Nov 22, 2009 by Joe Thompson

Patek’s New In-House Chronograph

Paris is always a treat, but Paris paired with a new Patek Philippe movement: ooh-la-la. On November 5, scores of reporters from around the world got just that, as Patek Philippe held a party at its newly renovated Place Vendôme boutique to launch its new in-house manual-wind chronograph movement, the CH 29-535 PS.

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Nov 15, 2009 by Norma Buchanan

Patek Philippe’s Thierry Stern: Past, Present, Future

WatchTime’s last feature, titled “Executive Sweep”, looked at the number of top watch company executives being replaced as a result of the economic downturn. This new article focuses on a transfer of executive power of a different type altogether. At family-owned Patek Philippe, top executives do not come and go. This story is about the...

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Oct 25, 2009 by WatchTime

Executive Sweep

September was a tough month for watch executives, and not just because of the continuing slump in sales. A small army of top executives – three worldwide CEOs, and five U.S. ones – resigned or were fired.

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Oct 12, 2009 by Norma Buchanan

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