THE WIRE
An event created six years ago to work around the establishment is now sponsored by it. Rolex retired a reference in April and the price still has not settled. Omega spent nine years giving a collection its own identity and just reversed the decision. And one market quietly became more than a quarter of everything Switzerland ships.
Geneva Watch Days opened yesterday and runs until Saturday. Seventy one brands, the seventh edition, and the biggest yet. The event began in 2020 as an emergency measure, created by eight brands — Breitling, Bulgari, De Bethune, Girard-Perregaux, H. Moser, MB&F, Ulysse Nardin and Urwerk — when every other exhibition in the world had been cancelled. It drew 17,000 public visitors last year, and unlike almost anything else at this level it is free to attend and decentralised across hotels and showrooms rather than staged in a single hall.