Probably one of my favorite watches from the Baselworld show is the Franc Vila Concept Tourbillon Planétaire Skeleton SuperLigero. The case is made of black titanium with a special elliptic and circular bezel, which is signature Franc Vila. The crystal and the caseback are both sapphire with double sided anti-glare treatment. It is water resistant to 100 meters. The movement is a FV Nº 6 mechanical movement with manual winding and 24 rubies. It is a flying tourbillon with inertial moment control mechanism and a wheel differential system. The watch is hand-made and hand-decorated. The bridge of the tourbillon and plate are made in red "Lightnium". It has hour, minutes and power reserve functions. The dial is a transparent sapphire. This is an ultra-limited edition of 8 pieces. The case is also available in a Black Diehard Extreme Steel, DieHard Extreme Steel, red gold, white gold and Titanium & Gold. I did not get a chance to schedule a meeting with Franc Vila this year, but I am sure all editions are sold out.

So, what does the horological land scape look like after Basel? For the broad trends in the whole industry I’m not informed well enough yet, but for the Rolex brand some initial conclusions can be drawn. The first and most significant one is that Rolex follows the big watch trend after all with a bonanza of 40 and 41 mm dress watches and a Sea-Dweller of 43 mm. An interpretation of this fact could be that their attempts to revive the 36 mm size for men were to no avail: the Turn-O-Graph, the new Datejusts and Day Dates just don’t work for todays men anymore in terms of sales. 40 mm is the new standard and even the stable and cautious design school of Rolex has to follow the market.

My second observation is that the design job of filling this bigger dials in some way seems to puzzle the Rolex company. A range of solutions has been chosen, from a wild carnival of colors for markers, hands and glass on last years Milgauss, to dials with more and more expressive writings and numerals even on this years new 36 mm watches. The new Day Dates got a more busy dial and the bigger Sea-Dweller Deep Sea gained an extra Power Ring under the glass and a lot more writing as well. Not to start again about last years new Yacht Master II that is filled with funny primary colors and complications. Somehow the designers seem to be afraid of simplicity or empty spaces. Although the new Day Date is a wonderfull new piece, in all the new dial layouts are far from perfect in my opinion.

Thirdly it is noticable that with the introduction of the DeepSea, Rolex continues their beautiful high end tool watch tradition. The fears of every model being turned into a polished dress watch did not become reality after all. But as pointed out in the text of their own press kitt: The deep seas are part of peoples dreams. And the depth rating of 3900 meters it will also stay there and will not come to life: there is not much use even for divers to have a watch with this qualities. Does that make this a silly invention? Bottom line: Yes. Does that make it a silly watch? No, not at all. The DeepSea is an impressive piece of innovation and an absolutely gorgeous tool watch I’d love to own. It is Non Plus Ultra, nothing superior seems to exist. That is what we all want and why we spend ridiculous amounts on luxury watches, right? On the other hand, in moving in this direction Rolex accepts that their wrist watches have nothing extra to add to modern day life anymore. Back in the ’50’s they did add usefull functionalities to watches when they invented Submariners for real divers and GMT Masters for real pilots. Without going into any suggestions for other concepts, this does feel like a missed opportunity to me.

In all the noise of the new innovations one should not forget to mention the gradual and flawless update of the Submariner. It moved in the same direction as the lovely new GMT II: maxi case, maxi hands and a new bezel. Although the color of blue of this first white gold model has been a turn off for many and the watch has been renamed The Smurf already, color is a matter of taste and the new Sub is a thing of beauty in the best Rolex tradition.

So, where does this leave the Rolex line up right now? With the new Day Dates and Datejusts Rolex covers the dress and jewelry watches segment just perfectly, both for women as well as for men again, there is space for innovations that go extreme and beyond with the DeepSea, and the main lines of Submariner and GMT II had their subtle but very strong updates. It is a job well done and worthy of the companies legendary name. Actually… I’m looking forward to Basel 2009 rumours already. - Evert ‘08

Credits for the picture go Elmar @ Oysterinfo.de

Today was press day at Baselworld 2008 and most importantly, the opening of all watch halls. Here a few of my favorite watches so far, as well as a few shots of the show. Five more pics after the jump. Many more pics to come.......... Oh by the way the fish tank image is part of the Breitling booth and the pic does not do it justice-- the tank is suspended 2 stories in the air and looks unreal for a display that is temporary.

I do not know a whole lot about Edox, but their new Classe Royal Chronograph is pretty sharp. This chrono is distinguished by a two-tone case that is both polished 316L stainless steel and black PVD. The crystal is an anti-reflective convex sapphire crystal and the caseback is see-through. We will try to get a few shots of this at the watch show this week.

TAG Heuer will be introducing new Carrera models at Baselworld 2008. The TAG Heuer Carrera Calibre 1 Vintage and the Grand Carrera Calibre 17 RS2.

The Calibre 1 has a mechanical hand wound movement, a 43 mm diameter case, a transparent back and is limited to 6000 pieces worldwide. The Calibre 17 RS2 utilizes Grade 2 Titanium (Ti2) with a black titanium carbide treatment, which makes the already corrosion resistant metal even more resistant to damage. The RS2 has a matte black alligator strap with a "soft touch" coating. The dial is very nice looking with a red colored seconds hand, a red stripe on the crown and red stitching on the inside of the strap. The RS2 has a COSC certified chronometer movement and black-gold hand applied hands. I will be taking a closer look at these watches in Basel next week. From the pictures I would have to say these might be the best looking TAG watches I have ever seen. The fact that TAG Heuer is utilizing black treaments on their watches is further proof that this is not just hype, but that black watches are here to stay.