My favorites from BaselWorld 2013

Early in the month I was sent to Basel World, the largest watch expo in the world by Trafalgar so that I could cover the event for my blog. I was there for 3 days and I think by the last day I had managed to check out the whole expo since it was just so ridiculously huge. I managed to get access to a few brands I wanted to see except for two which were Rolex and Breitling. Rolex had the new anniversary edition Daytona I wanted to check out while Breitling had the new Emergency. If you don’t have access to a brand you basically only get to check out their displays outside their booth. With access you get taken inside the booth where you get to see the watches in person. Below are my favorite watches from the expo.

TAG Heuer – Carrera MikroPendulum S
TAG Heuer has recently been creating a lot of crazy movements and mostly because of Guy Semon (mad scientist/genius). I met him at Basel and he showed me some of his latest pieces including the Carrera MikroPendulum S. It was the first watch I had ever seen with dual tourbillons yet alone magnetic tourbillons. The tourbillon is a very complicated piece of the watch to manufacture which is why a watch which contains a tourbillon easily costs over KD20,000. For over 300 years the tourbillon was made using something called a hairspring and then TAG came along a couple of years back, removed the hairspring and replaced it with magnets and it’s now one of their proud innovations.

TAG Heuer – Mikrogirder 2000
I originally posted about the Mikrogirder 1000 back in 2011 and while at Basel this year I got to see the Mikrogirder 2000 which is twice as fast. It’s a chronograph that can measure up to 1/2000th of a second which is so fast that the seconds hand basically disappears when you hit the start button as you can see in the video above.

Harry Winston Opus 13
Harry Winston are mostly known for their jewelry but they also make some pretty amazing watches. The Opus series is my favorite because with every release they somehow reinvent the way to tell time. I posted about the Opus 11 previously which is my favorite of the series. It’s pretty complicated to explain how the Opus 13 works but it involves 59 tiny little hands that stick out one by one around the sides letting you know the minutes while in the middle is a bunch of triangles that stick out to tell the hour. To visually see how that works you can watch a video of it [Here]

Harry Winston’s Histoire de Tourbillon 4
Other than the fact this watch has a extremely highly complicated movement with a triple axis tourbillon, this watch was also one of the most expensive ones I tried at Basel World costing around KD200,000. The only other watch I got to see that was more expensive was the Hublot Million Dollar watch but that was expensive because of all the diamonds and not because of the movement.

L.U Chopard Esprit de Fleurier
L.U Chopard is Chopard’s higher end line of watches and one I just found out about in Basel. Other than their Engine One line the watches are all very classic in design and generally not my style but I just couldn’t help notice and appreciate the “Esprit de Fleurier”. It’s innards were engraved by an artist and to me is just incredibly beautiful. Some of the engraving can be see on the front face but the rear of the watch is definitely where my heart is.

Hublot Depeche Mode
Compared to all the other watches I posted above this Hublot doesn’t have a movement that can be compared to them but it does have one thing the others don’t have and that’s a partnership with Depeche Mode. This limited model was designed in collaboration with them and I’m a huge Depeche Mode fan so I think this watch looks great. Even better, all proceeds from the sale of this watch will go to bringing safe drinking water to developing countries.

Hublot LaFerrari
This bizarre looking Hublot was created in partnership with Ferrari. Even though it has a tourbillon the highlight has to be the 50 day power reserve. That means you only have to wind the watch just once every 50 days thanks to the stacked 11 barrels. Whats more, unlike conventional manually winding watches, the LaFerrari comes with a powered winding gun which you need to use when winding the watch.

HYT H2
One of the most exciting watches I got to see at Basel World was the H2 by HYT. I was actually surprised to see the H2 since I was going there just hoping to see the original H1 which was last years model and their first watch. What I love about HYT is their watches tell time using liquids. The watch has a circular tube filled with two liquids, a flurcent green liquid and a transparent/clear liquid. Like water and oil these two colors can never mix. At each end of the tube are tiny pumps which control the green and clear liquids allowing them to tell time and it’s all done mechanically without the use of any batteries. It’s crazy engineering and this year they even teamed up with AP Renaud & Papi (whom I visited last year) to have the movement reworked resulting in the masterpiece seen above.

Linde Werdelin SpidoSpeed Steel
Linde Werdelin is a brand I kept running across online in different forums but never really got to check them out in person since the brand isn’t yet available in our region. What I like about this brand is it’s aimed towards mountain climbers and divers. LW make digital instruments which snap on to all their watches as you can see in the photo below and these digital instruments provide the wearer with various important data needed. It’s an interesting concept and I really like the way the SpidoSpeed looks like but the only issue I have is with the price. The watch costs around KD3,500 without the instrument and I think that’s just too expensive to pay for a watch considering the movements they’re using.