SIHH date change: An ever more elite selection of guests

31 march 2009 - source FINANCIAL TIMES

Almost every trade and profession has its "most important annual event". The watch and jewellery trades have held theirs in the ancient university city of Basel since 1917. Dubbed Baselworld in 2003, thousands of visitors flock to it towards the end of March or the beginning of April.

About 20 years ago, however, a mood grew among the CEOs of a handful of luxury watch brands that a separate, smaller, more discreet, and, most vital of all, invited trade only, "important annual event" might suit their purposes better. The Salon International de la Haute Horlogerie (the SIHH) was conceived to take place in Geneva, the acknowledged home of watchmaking. Until this year, the SIHH always opened its doors a few days after the start of Baselworld for the convenience of international trade visitors and journalists.

But this year those doors swung open on January 19. For the first time, they had not arrived battleweary, overwatched perhaps, after calling on the many hundreds of booths in Basel.

The doors of the 19th SIHH at Palexpo, Geneva's giant exhibition halls, closed on January 24 having received 15,000 visitors from more than 150 countries.

Each had inspected new wristwatch collections and new versions of previous successes, gathered in the latest news - and essential gossip - and met newly appointed contacts on the elegant and extremely well-guarded booths, each complete with many private meeting rooms.

This year there were 17 exhibitors (12 of which belonged to, or are linked to, the Richemont Group): A. Lange & Söhne, Audemars Piguet, Baume & Mercier, Cartier, Dunhill (no new watches this year), Girard-Perregaux, IWC, Jaeger-LeCoultre, JeanRichard, Montblanc, Panerai, Parmigiani Fleurier, Piaget, Ralph Lauren (an exciting newcomer, in whose new watch collections Richemont has a 50 per cent interest), Roger Dubuis, Vacheron Constantin and Van Cleef & Arpels.

Anne Biéler, the organiser of the event, has confirmed that these same brands will be back next year. Visitor numbers were down by about 19 per cent on last year, and so, leaving aside for a moment the universal fact of the credit crunch, an obvious question arises.

Did the substantially earlier date of the SIHH this year, thus widely separating from Baselworld, cause the attendance downturn? Possibly so, but it was a "cleaner" trade fair: sales pitches to agents, wholesalers and retailers were less strident, there was more understanding that the world economic situation was well served by a large degree of handholding between trusted trading partners.

There were lower initial orders, larger discounts, better credit terms and increased joint promotional and sponsorship activities.

From the exhibiting brands' points of view, the earlier date of the Geneva event provided a much clearer perspective of their markets internationally, and therefore production planning, for the rest of the year and beyond. This was just as a whole raft of redundancies and part-timing, already announced across the industry, had concentrated minds in companies great and small.

During the days of the SIHH, more than 40 small watchmaking enterprises at the very high end of the so-called luxury market took spaces in salons in the leading hotels along Geneva's glamorous lakefront to show off their new wares.

The books-on-demand printing revolution that is sweeping through the publishing industry provides a sound analogy. Small manufacturers of complicated, highly innovative timepieces can supply demand if the customer, who knows exactly what he wants in the first place, can wait in a queue and have the money ready.

One of the salon exhibitors was Jean Dunand, a brand established by Thierry Oulevay and Christophe Claret back in 2003. During 2009 they will sell only their 100th watch: it is confidently embedded in the "if you need to know the price, you can't afford it" category.

That same category most probably encapsulates the fact that the SIHH too will flourish again next year.

CULT WATCHES: The World's Enduring Classics by Michael Balfour is published this month in paperback (Merrell, £18.95)
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009