Watches and Wonders, arguably the premier watch show of the year, closed its halls yesterday, but not without a whirlwind of press coverage for new releases from the biggest brands out there. While you’ll find plenty of fawning coverage of all the releases, not every model was created equal, and not every brand was able to deliver at the same level. Here’s our take on the winners and losers of Watches and Wonders 2022.
Winner: Cartier
With a slew of stunning dials and arguably one of the most intriguing releases of the entire show, I’m calling it: Cartier won Watches and Wonders 2022. Continuing its Mystery Dial collection, Cartier released an absolute stunner with the Cartier Masse Mystérieuse. The entirety of the movement is contained within the rotor—the movement is the rotor. There are engineering feats at play here that I will never understand, and I’m ok with that. Being in awe of something is a lovely feeling.
While the Masse Mystérieuse is a demonstration of horological prowess, the Cartier Coussin Cartier is how Cartier wants to have fun. These watches—two models of a larger collection—take the cushion case to the next level, with cases that are actual cushions: the entire outer case is flexible, contracting when squeezed.
It wasn’t all New! New! New! with Cartier. They did manage to revisit some classics with exceptional iterations of the Santos-Dumont and the Crash (a fan favorite). If it’s not clear why I’ve crowned Cartier best in show, let me put it bluntly: No other brand demonstrated horological and design excellence as clearly and consistently as Cartier.
Loser: Hublot
Hublot doesn’t get enough credit for its use of non-standard materials. During this year’s show, the brand continued its love affair with sapphire and angles—including a case made entirely of purple sapphire—but they also released something that has an uncanny resemblance to a model from this year’s show winner.
The Hublot Square Bang is what would happen if you injected steroids into a Cartier Santos. Or, more accurately, this is what did happen when Hublot decided to do its own take on the Cartier Santos. There are some elements of design you can borrow without being accused of anything worse, but there are some elements when put together, form the essence of another watch. The sqaure case with contrasting fixed bezel with screws is the Cartier Santos. Managing to make such a design ugly doesn’t make what Hublot has done any better, though I am guessing the Hubros that don’t want something as “dainty” as a Santos are happy.
Winner: H. Moser & Cie.
Always ready to have fun while blowing minds, Moser didn’t pull punches this year. The brand’s centerpiece was the Pioneer Cylindrical Tourbillon Skeleton. Housed in the Pioneer case, it is the brand’s first skeletonized movement and unsurprisingly, it’s a home run. What attracts my eye, though, is the main dial with applied molded lume indices, which have a playful vibe to them. And what’s more, the watch allows 120m of water resistance, which is just what you need with a tourbillon.
While Moser may have had a bit of fun with the applied lume, it was nothing compared to the Streamliner Chronograph “Blacker than Black.” Can you make it out below? Moser has taken Vantablack (which absorbs 99.965% of light) and used carbon nanotube coating on every component of the watch except the hands. The result, while impractical, is like a visual riddle.
Loser: Rolex
Rolex is resting haughtily upon its laurels. Year after year, it presents “new” models with incremental changes, willfully blind to the innovation and design ingenuity going on with almost every other brand. You could argue Rolex doesn’t need to innovate or do anything beyond incremental changes: it doesn’t matter what it puts out, people will buy it. That’s certainly the way the Crown seems to be operating.
This year, the biggest splash Rolex made was with an inexplicable left-hand GMT-Master II that no one asked for. The watch itself is so jarring as to look fake. Just 10% of the world is lefthanded and while they certainly deserve a left-handed watch now and again, I imagine that if they had any hopes for an LHD Rolex, it was a Submariner. And why is the date on the left side?
In addition to the new Creature from the Black Lagoon GMT, Rolex tried and failed to improve the much-maligned Air-King, switched around some dials and bezels to claim it had new models, and issued some admittedly beautiful 31mm Datejusts with floral dials.
Winner: Vacheron Constantin
Vacheron Constantin, to me, is doing some of the finest watchmaking of the larger luxury brands. While Patek Philippe generally seems content to maintain traditional designs and Audemars Piguet is pushing the envelope with more extreme, modern designs, Vacheron has found itself a comfortable spot in the middle. It routinely explores new complications and has designs that cover the entire spectrum from traditional to modern. This year, they looked back on a classic to capitalize on the integrated bracelet trend, releasing the Historiques 222.
The 222 was originally unveiled in 1977 for the maison’s 222nd anniversary (hence the creative name). Made of solid 18k gold and measuring 37mm, it’s not only a way for the brand to capture the integrated bracelet market, but also makes a strong statement about where the market is on solid gold timepieces and smaller dimensions.
Vacheron seems to like a bit of fun, too, and the Les Cabinotiers department is often where it’s had. This year, the specialized team have created the Les Cabinotiers Minute Repeater Tourbillon Split-Seconds Monopusher Chronograph. The amazing combination of complications is only exceeded by the watch’s name. The LCMRTSSMC (no, that’s not better) is another example of a beautiful thing that nobody asked for, nobody needs, and everyone wants.
Loser: Montblanc
Montblanc is a curious brand and I’ll admit I’ve never been able to fully make sense of them. There’s little cohesion in the brand’s lineup, though the Heritage collection is quite well done. This year they seem to be trending towards derivative microbrand territory. While changing a dial and calling it a new watch isn’t unfamiliar, doing so with gimmicky dials set in a generic looking watch is the thing of Kickstarter campaigns.
The new Montblanc 1858 Iced Sea Automatic Date features a slew of generic features and a beautiful dial, which is how I’d describe about 95% of microbrand watches. The dial here is meant to represent textures from ice formations and the colors available—blue, green, and black—were selected because they are all colors observable in glacial ice. Isn’t it a mighty fine coincidence that the three best-selling watch colors happened to be observable in glacial ice? Jinkies! Someone at Montblanc had a good idea for a dial and they stopped there. Maybe they were cheating off Grand Seiko’s test and didn’t see the part about grammar of design.
I’d like to send an additional participation ribbon to Baume et Mercier for showing up and doing their best—stick with it, guys! There were tons of releases this year, and not all of them were bad. Since we didn’t go and didn’t bother to waste our (or your) time on press release inundation, feel free to head over to one of the sites that did and check out all the releases (or the ones they decided to cover).
