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Watch fairs are funny things – are we most interested in a show like the LVMH Watch Week for the experience or for the new watches? What if those new watches include a heavy-hitter such as the Hublot MP-10, or an icon such as the Bulgari Bulgari Bulgari, which is the only watch we know of that makes one say the brand name not once but three times! What about the return of a classic, as heralded by both the Carerra Chronograph Dato for TAG Heuer and the Chronomaster Original Triple Calendar for Zenith? For the independent-minded enthusiast and collector, it must be a different sort of return: a public celebration of the rebirths of Gerald Genta and Daniel Roth brand names.
A year-opening affair like the one organized by the LVMH group to pump up its new watches is no way to judge the novelties of the year, nor is it an appetizer for the coming Watches and Wonders Geneva show. That said, just the list we rattled off cannot be taken lightly, and it certainly makes us wish we could make it to the Miami show in person. We sat out the season-opener in 2024 this year because it is simply too close to the Geneva show for comfort and Miami is a bridge too far. For some context, Hublot, TAG Heuer and Zenith all show at Watches and Wonders, and some (if not all) will be sharing the key talking points at the later fair.
For us, the watches are then the meat of the LVMH Watch Week, and the subject of this briefest of notes. While the important watches are not exactly listed in the order we noted, we do want to begin with the MP-10, which to give it its due, is the MP-10 Tourbillon Weight Energy System Titanium. That word salad is really shorthand for all that makes the watch special: Hublot has done away with hands, dial and completely reinvented the automatic winding system. While we will get into it in more detail later, the gist of it is that the MP-10 uses its movement to display the time, as you can see.
Read More: Takashi Murakami Discusses His Latest Hublot Creation
On that note, perhaps the most significant thing to discuss here is how that winding system works. Hublot’s watchmakers have set aside the traditional winding rotor here, relying instead on the force generated by the white gold blocks that move freely around the vertical axis. The result is perhaps one of the most attention-grabbing watches we have seen in recent years, and certainly at the LVMH Watch Fair.
Moving on to something with a different flavour, there is also that Bulgari to get into. First of all, this watch will be celebrating its 50th birthday in 2025, and it is perhaps one of the last of Genta’s seminal designs of the 1970s. The Bulgari Bulgari is a watch so lovely they named it twice, and it gets two new sizes this year: an automatic (calibre BVL 191) in 38 mm and a 26 mm quartz model. Other than size, everything else is proportionately the same as the watch you already know.
Read More: The TAG Heuer Carrera Chronograph Drips in Gold
Standards get a lot more play at the LVMH timekeeping party this year, with TAG Heuer and Zenith both playing to their respective strengths. For those who might be scratching their heads in wonder at the teal green Carrera Chronograph, we addressed it as the Dato but that is not its name. Indeed, although this is a new contemporary reference for Carrera Chronographs, it will share the same naming convention as all other Carrera Chronographs. The Dato reference was meant to put you in mind of the 1968 Heuer Carrera 45 Dato, so-named for its distinctive date at 9 o’clock. The date is back there (there are several date positions for the Carrera) now and the chronograph is thus mono-register and sans any running seconds indication. Calibre TH20-07 has a vertical clutch to accompany its column wheel so you could safely keep the chronograph seconds going if you wanted.
Finally, the Zenith Chronomaster Original Triple Calendar throws a lot of information at the wearer – or any onlooker really. This too is a watch evocative of the past, when Zenith made the El Primero calibre to not only be an integrated automatic chronograph. Yes, not only, because the brand made some examples of triple calendar watches, with moon phase indicator, with the El Primero movement by 1970, just a year after the launch of the chronograph movement. Zenith today says that this is a watch that took 55 years to get here, but the chronograph with full calendar and moon phase display was in the collection in 2014, as the 410 Triple Calendar and Moon Phase Chronograph.
Read More: Zenith Defy Extreme Mirror High-Speed Polish
That closes out this initial report on the LVMH Watch Week novelties, which was written in advance of the fair via disclosure-protected releases. When we do have the chance to touch and feel the real deals, we will have more of a story to tell about all these highlights – and the many more we have not got to (yet).
For more on the latest in luxury watch reads, click here.
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