The Watch Industry Calendar Returns to Normal (So Far, Anyway)

For the first time in years, the watch industry’s calendar might unfold as planned. The third annual LVMH Watch Week was held last week in Singapore. Watches and Wonders Hainan, which opened on China’s resort island in early December, is to end Feb. 28. The Swiss industry’s only major fair, Watches and Wonders Geneva, is scheduled for March. But fairs are no longer brands’ only platforms for new releases. The constant release cycle seems to have become permanent, with watches appearing year-round. Still, perhaps you shouldn’t set your watch by the industry just yet.

A Fair Wind From the East

Four dial names from the vast LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton empire — Bulgari, Hublot, TAG Heuer and Zenith — gathered in Singapore Jan. 10 to pull back the curtain on a handful of the pieces they have lined up for this year. Here are the highlights.

Bulgari Serpenti Tubogas Infinity

It has been 75 years since Bulgari’s artisans were first inspired by snakes, or serpenti in Italian, while designing a watch. The Roman jeweler turned high-end Swiss watchmaker has used this anniversary to play with one of its favorite themes, but for the first time it has sent a slithering trail of diamonds from the watch’s snow-set dial, to the bezel, onto the case and along an undulating Tubogas bracelet. One of the two models wraps twice around the forearm, requiring a whopping 486 diamonds, totaling 5.85 carats. The snake-within-a-snake motif that this creates is gloriously graphic, and another sign of a watch and jewelry house firmly in control of its oeuvre. $66,000

TAG Heuer Monza Flyback Chronometer

We’re now in the 60th year of TAG Heuer’s era- and category-defining Carrera chronograph, and no doubt at some point the Swiss company will offer a full grid of anniversary models. But now the brand is calling attention to its more esoteric Monza, named for the Formula 1 racetrack in Italy. This version of the cushion-shaped watch is fueled by the Heuer 02 Flyback (a flyback is a stopwatch that can simultaneously be zeroed and restarted with a single push of the reset button). Probably more memorable though is the watch’s punchy color scheme: red and blue elements, including a blue date wheel that glows in the dark, rendered all the brighter against the shadowy carbonized case. $13,850

Hublot Big Bang Unico SORAI

This is the third iteration of a collaboration between the high-energy Swiss watch brand and Save Our Rhinos Africa and India, or SORAI, a social platform established by one of the biggest names in world cricket, the former England cricket captain Kevin Pietersen. He has become an ardent conservationist, using his profile and that of his sponsors to channel funds to organizations fighting to protect the rhino, whose numbers are said to have dwindled by 90 percent over the last decade, largely the result of poaching. The 100-piece limited edition is a colorful, sunset spin on Hublot’s familiar Big Bang chronograph with what is called a “rhino gray” ceramic case. Purchase with a purpose. $24,100

Zenith Defy Skyline 36 mm

Zenith’s evolution into what parts of the fashion world might label “a must-have” probably is no surprise to its longtime admirers. But two years ago the arrival of the Chronomaster Sport catapulted it into the group of “exhibition-only” brands that couldn’t match the fierce demand for their products. What that may mean for this second run of Defy Skyline watches, in a market that’s suddenly slightly less certain of itself, remains to be seen. But the model — with its 36 millimeters of slightly brutalist brushed steel; icy blue, sea foam green or (as here) whiplash pink dials, and powered by Zenith’s own automatics — remains an agreeable proposition with a built-in emotional equity that the brand always has deserved. $12,000

Around the World in 8 Watches

Notable anniversaries, old favorites reborn and a watch that could have been an April Fool’s joke (but somehow isn’t). Here are the most memorable of recent watch releases.

Blancpain Fifty Fathoms 70th Anniversary Act I

Blancpain’s Fifty Fathoms was the original modern dive watch (not Rolex’s Submariner). But it sank without a trace some years after its introduction in 1953, so when it was revived in 2003 for its 50th anniversary, its story was news to many. Twenty years on, the re-oxygenation process continues with a series of three 70-piece limited editions. Aesthetically and mechanically, there’s not much new to report, but history makes this anniversary noteworthy. $17,400

Piaget Altiplano Zodiac Watch, Year of the Rabbit

There are 12 animals in the Chinese zodiac — but since Piaget began commemorating Lunar New Year only 11 years ago, this is the first time it has added rabbits to a watch. For the festival, which starts Sunday, the brand and Anita Porchet, the master enameler who is its longtime collaborator, have created 38 grand feu cloisonné enamel rabbit-motif dials, each surrounded by a 38-millimeter white gold Altiplano case set with 78 brilliant-cut diamonds. $71,000

Ulysse Nardin Diver X Skeleton

Luxury watch companies are so confident in the resilience of their mechanical movements that horological creations that once would have been labeled “handle with care” are increasingly found suspended in watches designed for adventure. This model is a case in point: It is water-resistant to 200 meters (656 feet), sealed in hard-wearing titanium and set on a white rubber strap, and yet its mechanical movement is skeletonized, meaning most of its weight and structure have been removed. Baffling, but brilliant. $26,400

Ralph Lauren 867

When Ralph Lauren’s collaboration with Richemont fizzled out five years ago, watch efforts from the preppy American outfitter lost some impetus. But in the past 18 months, it has begun building its collection again. This spring, the focus will fall on its 867 line, a square-case Art Deco-style watch named for the location of the brand’s Madison Avenue flagship. This 32-millimeter piece with an unusual sterling silver case is one of four models, powered by an ultrathin hand-wound caliber made for Ralph Lauren by the Swiss maker Piaget. From $8,350

Code 11.59 by Audemars Piguet Starwheel

A mechanical tour de force no doubt, but the clover-like “wandering hours” dial of this latest Code 11.59 model takes a moment to decipher. Time is shown via three spinning subdials representing the hours and by an accompanying black triangle that aligns to a 120-degree minutes scale. The system is a throwback to the 17th century, but as this model is surrounded by a skeletonized case of white gold and black ceramic and paired with a sparkling blue aventurine dial, here it feels really quite avant-garde. $57,900

IWC Portofino Perpetual Calendar

In the 1980s, when Swiss watchmaking was busy battling the quartz wave, brands had little appetite for experimentation. So Kurt Klaus’s perpetual calendar movement, released in 1985, occupies a special place in history. It was engineered to track the date in full until 2100, while the moonphase would need adjusting by one day only every 577.5 years — all operated via a single crown. A modernized version of the movement returns in IWC’s classic Portofino, in steel for the first time and also (as here) in rose gold. $33,500

H. Moser & Cie Endeavour Centre Seconds Genesis

Despite appearances, Moser’s latest is a real watch, and not an upscale leg-pull. Behind its (bewildering) pixelated aesthetic is what the upstart independent brand is calling “a new immersive luxury experience” that “combines physical, digital and virtual dimensions.” Translation: Each of the 50 pieces in this limited edition is engraved with a QR code to what it describes as a “digital and virtual ecosystem,” including blockchain proof of ownership and priority access to the next in Moser’s scheduled trio of Web 3.0-inspired pieces. Somewhere are hands that tell the time, too. $29,900

Gerald Charles Maestro GC3.0-TN Chronograph

Small, family-owned independent watchmakers with high production values and low volumes are having quite the time recently. Of course, it helps when your back story includes Gerald Genta, the great designer behind Audemars Piguet’s Royal Oak, who gave his first two names to this brand in 2000. The idiosyncratic Maestro is his design and the house’s signature, issued this week in mirror-polished titanium and powered by a bespoke automatic chronograph caliber by the Swiss movement master Vaucher Manufacture Fleurier. $25,400

Lace Inspires two Secret Watches for La D de Dior

It hardly needs saying now, but one of the most seismic developments in watchmaking during the past two decades has been the movement of luxury fashion houses into the luxury watch space. Think Chanel, Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Hermès, Ralph Lauren — they all are players now.

Add to that list the house of Dior, which 20 years ago breathed fresh ideas into the stale world of women’s watches with La D de Dior, a round, two-hand watch that has helped regenerate the category.

Behind La D de Dior, in 2003 as now, was Dior Joaillerie’s celebrated artistic director Victoire de Castellane. Her big, post-millennium idea? “I wasn’t happy with women’s watches at the time,” she says, speaking on a video call from her Paris office. “The inspiration was to take a man’s watch that a woman could make her own.”

She looked specifically to men’s watches of the 1970s, a prescient move as the period has proved to be hugely influential in watch design this century.

“In the 1970s, there were a lot of watches with hard stone dials that both men and women could wear, and I found that very free,” she explains. “And when I arrived at Place Vendôme, I realized that those watches were no longer available and no design or fashion house had revived them. Today, jewelry and jewelry watch buyers have become more spontaneous, freer. They want a fashion accessory that is precious, but their approach is more laid-back.”

Since La D de Dior’s debut, the watch design conversation has changed, although its basic form has not. “I don’t really approach the creation of a watch based on the gender of who will wear that watch, male or female,’’ she says. “I want to tell a story that the buyer will love enough to buy it.”

The fluid, uncompromising simplicity of La D de Dior’s form has, Ms. de Castellane says, provided her with limitless creative possibilities. Over the years, she has added myriad flourishes: color and artistic decorations, as well as hard and precious stones. “I always enjoy dressing the watch up, like a Stockman dummy,” she says, referring to the New York City-based mannequin brand.

This month, the La D de Dior collection is to increase with two new one-of-a-kind secret watches, inspired by lace and set with precious stones, both designed by Ms. de Castellane. (A secret watch is the industry term for a timepiece whose dial is covered in some manner.)

And in March, there is to be the debut of a new watch collection she has created, called La D My Dior, which highlights the house’s signature cannage (in English, cane work) motif.

Christian Dior died in 1957, but, Ms. de Castellane says, “I was always thinking of a watch that he would have liked, had he been present.”