The latest watch in Piaget's Polo Tourbillon Relatif series will delight fans of the city of Paris. The new watch, which will be shown at the upcoming SIHH 2008 watch and jewelry show has a mechanical hand-wound one minute flying tourbillon and uses the Manufacture Piaget caliber 608P movement. The dial features names of famous Parisians. The coolness factor here though is on the sides of the watch. The sides of the watch are decorated with amazingly intricate etchings of the city. The design shows monuments such as the Arc de Triomphe, Eiffel Tower, the Louvre and others. No details on price or production are available yet.

I find the newest women's watch from Girard-Perregaux a little sexist (women aren't the only shoppers after all) but the watch is awfully attractive. The Girard-Perregaux ww.tc 24 Hour Shopping Watch gives the time in 24 time zones listing them, not by cities as most watches do, but by shopping destinations. The watch lists places famous for their fashion and luxury boutiques, such as Faubourg Saint-Honoré, Dubai, Ginza and Rode Drive. There are several different versions available and each one focuses on two specific venues: Faubourg Saint-Honoré and Orchard Road, or Montenapoleone and Central or Rue du Rhône and Nan Jing Xi Lu. The other time zones are indicated on the city ring by fifteen different sized diamonds, adding up to 0.18 carats. The dial has diamonds as some of the hour markets and the bezel is set with 54 diamonds (a total of 1.95 carats). The 41mm watch uses the Girard-Perregaux movement GP033G0, a mechanical movement with automatic winding. It has a sapphire crystal and a sapphire back. One nice detail is the onyx cabochons set into the watch crowns.

We don't know too much about this watch except that is will be introduced during the SIHH show in Switzerland in April. The Cartier Perles watch is part of the Cartier Libre watch collection which also includes Cartier's Crash watches. The Cartier Perle is done in 18K white gold with 389 diamonds (a total of 2.9 carats) and highlighted by two pearls. The movement is a Swiss quartz module. The style is very striking but it looks like might be awkward to wear.

Mike Disher of Time Zone is at the SIHH show and is covering some of the new releases. Today we are looking at Panerai watches. I'm pretty immune to the charms of this brand but these are some lovely and simple watches.

My favorite is the Radiomir 10 Days GMT in pink gold, PAM00273. It uses the Panerai calibre P.2003 movement and has a 45 mm diameter pink gold case with a "sandwich" dial and pink gold hands. The central hand with the arrow displays the second time zone. The edition of 250 pieces that will be available starting in August.

The SIHH watch and jewelry show has begun and Girard Perregaux is showing off a wide variety of watches several of which highlight the watches vintage styles.

My favorite is this one, the Girard-Perregaux Vintage 1945 Jackpot Tourbillon watch combines a Tourbillon and a slot machine equipped with a striking mechanism in a Vintage 1945 case. The top of the dial has three symbols that spin while the bottom part of the watch reveals the tourbillon cage. A handle on the right side of the case sets the three reels in motion which then stop randomly on one of the possible five symbols, while a hammer strikes a gong. Out of the 125 combinations, only one represents the jackpot: the three bells in a row. The 43mm case is done in pink gold.

We first heard about this watch when it made its debut at SIHH, now check out the sexy red gold version of the Hours of the World Perpetual Calendar by Girard-Perregaux. The 41mm watch which is ringed with the names of the world's major cities is equipped with an automatic GP 033Q0 mechanical movement with 46-hour power reserve. The watch has a day/night disc and indicates the day, month, date, moon phase on a four year cycle with leap year. It has an anti-reflection sapphire crystal with a transparent screw-down caseback. 

[via EuropaStar]

At SIHH in Geneva Roger Dubuis showed off their limited edition Vintage Grand Prix Collection. There will be 28 pieces in both a GoldenSquare case and an Hommage Sympathie case. The selling feature of these two gold watches are their enameled dials with vintage racing motifs. Like other Dubuis watches, it's more fun than fierce as opposed to other racing-themed watches we've seen lately.

The LA Times has an interesting article on the future of watches. With cell phones, iPods and computers all telling time do we still need wristwatches? The results of sales data seem to indicate that for the most part cheaper watches are the ones that are most likely to be phased out. Digital watches in particular no longer sell well and for the youth the watch can sometimes seem an antiquated gadget. Last year, the number of people who bought non-luxury watches dropped 12% from 2004, according to a market research group. The runaway favorite brand for teens, A consumer tracking group did find that the number of people buying watches that cost more than $1,000  dropped only  2% last year.

 Is the watch being phased out? It's an interesting topic in light of the fact that the big watch and jewelry shows, Baselworld and SIHH just took place.  A record 94,200 visitors (up 5% from last year) recently attended BaselWorld 2006, an eight-day watch and jewelry exhibition and 13,000 showed up at SIHH.  It seems that the future of the watch industry lies in the watches that are prized for more than just telling time but instead offer status (through recognizable brands), craftsmanship (tourbillons and watches with many complications) or the chance to accessorize with a noticeable and showy piece of jewelry. I think this is why the prestige watchmakers have been making case sizes larger and larger. For the watch collector or aficionado replacing a watch with a cell phone ins unthinkable.

[The watch show here is the FG One from de Grisogrono]

The watch mavens over at The PuristS have an overview of a lot of the major watches shown at the SIHH show in Geneva. Their photo and text portfolio (text by  Alexandre Ghotbi, photos by Alberto Schileo) is broken down into ten parts: Van Cleef & Arpels, Jaeger-LeCoultre, Girard Perregaux, Piaget, Parmigiani, A. Lange & Sohne, Audemars Piguet, Panerai and Ferrari, Vacheron Constantin and International Watch Company. The watch shown here is the Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso Eclipse.

The latest element in the 100th anniversary celebrations from Montblanc is this Star Chrono GMT Perpetual which was presented at SIHH in Geneva. The chronograph has a COSC-certified movement and a variety of functions including a GMT display and a perpetual calendar. The watch is made in a limited edition of 100 pieces each in 18K rose, white or yellow gold, and just three in platinum.

Gerald Genta, part of the Bulgari Group, will be debuting this unique watch at the upcoming SIHH 2006 fair. The Octo Black Spirit Tourbillon has a platinum octagon-shaped case with double sapphire crystals. The case which measures 42.5mm has a tantalum bezel and the crown features a cabochon sapphire. The 18K white gold dial is embellished with a dramatic geometric configuration of 22 black sapphires and 14 rubies.The automatic movement is exclusive for Gerald Genta by Bulgari, caliber GG99051 with 54 jewels, a sapphire tourbillon bridge and a power reserve of 64 hours. The watch is also available in rose gold.

Yesterday we took a look at how the numbers on the dial change the look of a watch, today's watch features two types of numbers on the same face. Time Zone has pictures of the Audemars Piguet Millenary Le Temps Ovale models that will be unveiled at the SIHH 2006 watch fair. The new oval dial is inspired by the Colosseum in Rome. It has a 45mm case in rose or white gold with a sapphire crystal and a display back. Audemars Piguet will unveil its newest addition to its Millenary Collection, the Ref. 15320. Its oval dial is inspired by the famous Colosseum in Rome. It uses the automatic Audemars caliber AP 3120 movement which has 40 jewels and a power reserve of 60 hours. After the jump, a beautiful rose gold version with turquoise numerals that count seconds.