AN ESTIMATED Bt350 million worth of timepieces will be on view and on sale at the Siam Paragon Watch Expo opening on Monday and continuing midway through August. More than 180 brands will be represented in the show, which has as its theme “The Icon of Timepieces”.
This year’s exposition is being run in partnership with Swiss manufacturer Breitling, whose watches typically celebrate “the spirit of aviation”. Breitling will transform Parc Paragon out front of the mall into an “airport” where a 12-metre-long jet will be parked.
The firm will also be promoting its latest collection, including the Exospace B55, which for the first time connects the chronograph and data functions. You can use your smartphone to set the time and time zone, and also transfer to your phone measurements such as flight time, recorded time and split time.
Meanwhile the Navitimer 1884 – of which 1,884 units were made – revisits the original pilot’s model of that vintage.
Other participating brands include Baume & Mercier, Corum, Frederique Constant, Graham, Gucci, Glashutte Original and Nomos Glashutte, Hubolt, Maitre Du Temps, Montblanc, Longines, Oris, Perrelet, Tag Heuer and Zenith.
In all there will be more than 30,000 timepieces set out in three categories – Masterpieces, Luxury and Trends. Some of the watches commemorate the makers’ historical achievements. Mont Blanc is celebrating its 110th anniversary, Tudor 90 years and Seiko 135 years.
Rolex is marking the 60th anniversary of its Day-Date models and the 90th of its Oyster model. Jaeger-Le Coultre introduced the Reverso 85 years ago, and Tag Heuer the Monza and Citizen the Eco Drive 40 years ago.
Also on view will be museum pieces first displayed earlier this year at Basel World, the premier watch event in Switzerland.
The Grand Seiko Avant-Garde Exhibition underscores the beauty of craftsmanship and the power of creativity in the contemporary art of Japan’s Daido Moriyamo and Nobuyashi Araki, as applied to Seiko’s Black ceramic model. And Gucci’s travelling exhibition features its “Cabinet of Curiosity”, arriving in Southeast Asia for the first time.
The Masterpieces segment includes the Glashutte Original: PanoMaticLunar in stainless steel with striking grey settings on the ruthenium dial, rhodium indices and white-gold hour, minute and subsidiary second hands.
The automatic-winding, 47-jewel mechanical Panorama Date has white numerals on a grey ground with a silver moon and stars set against a silvery night sky.
The Hublot Classic Fusion Tourbillon Skull boasts a skeleton movement housed in ceramic-coated aluminium for a truly striking appearance. It’s been micro-blasted by hand to ensure extreme hardness, resistant to corrosion and friction and yet twice as light as ceramic.
With a manually wound HUB6014 calibre and an astonishing five-day power reserve, it’s been limited to just 50 pieces – nine of which are available in Thailand.
In the Luxury category, jewels and craftsmanship come to the fore. The Gucci Diamantissima borrows the firm’s Diamante criss-cross canvas motif.
The Maurice Lacroix Masterpiece Skeleton features a finely finished, pared-to-the-bone movement in a transparent case. Large spaces between each double spoke let you admire the numerous movement parts, particularly the house’s own hand-wound ML134 with its sandblasted details.
The TAG Heuer Carrera Calibre Heuer 01, so named in honour of company founder Edouard Heuer, similarly reveals its chronograph controls and has an open-work date disc on the dial side. A red column wheel on the caseback, a skeleton bridge and a black weight also draw the eye.
In the Trends segment are stylish timepieces such as the Oris El Hierro Limited Edition, of which 2,000 pieces are being sold around the world and 50 in Thailand. The diver’s watch takes its inspiration from an underwater volcano off the coast El Hierro, one of the Canary Islands, mimicking the black and grey of volcanic rock and the red (in the bezel minutes scale, dial and central seconds hand) of the molten lava.
The 44.3mm Seiko Zimbe Limited Edition, with 1,299 pieces on sale in Thailand, has a grey dial resembling the hide of a whale shark. It deploys Air Diver technology to protect the case up to 200 metres deep in the ocean.
The Sevenfriday Kuka II is equipped with an NFC chip for authentication via a mobile application, a stainless steel case treated with black PVD, and a highly resistant black silicon animation ring with a “robot track” pattern.
– The Siam Paragon Watch Expo 2016 takes place at the Bangkok mall from Monday through August 15.
– Watch Galleria outlets at the Emporium and all branches of The Mall will also have promotions through September.
This source first appeared on The Nation Life.