Louis Vuitton, Ebel, Dior, Van Cleef & Arpels, Hermes and others are really putting the coal on the fires with their new watches – (Louis Vuitton with its Million Dollar Tourbillon).

When Louis Vuitton and Dior got serious about watches, the world took notice.

When Cartier announced the 100th anniversary of the “Santos,” WOW, the world went crazy. NOTE: The new “Santos” is beautiful; it’s larger but with the same Cartier style. Go to their web site and look. We will do a feature on the watch soon.

The fashion industry, in the past, has taken most of the “press” away from the watch industry and they even have a cable channel devoted just to fashion. But, as far as fashion goes, where have all the watches been? The watches have been locked behind the retail store shelves and in the hearts and minds of the companies in Europe who thought they knew it all. Paris and NY are what I think of when it comes to fashion, not Switzerland and watches!

To go from “Technically Minded Watchmakers” to “Fashion Conscious” could be a stretch, but maybe not. Jaeger, Van Cleef, Harry Winston, Cartier, Louis Vuitton and others like Piaget are all quite in fashion. But where is all the hype, the fashion channel, the news, the tall models – wearing watches – walking down the runway? Well, they are on the way!

Zenith had an extraordinary event in Switzerland during the Basel Show, another earlier in the year in Miami, and I expect yet another new model and media-attracting event during the winter holiday season.

Cartier had a star-studded event near Paris this year, to launch the new “Santos.” Celebs, music, and all the glitz and glamour of Hollywood!

These events are spectacular! Models, runways, lights, dancing – and all the beautiful people, including myself. (I hobnob with the beautiful people now.) This is becoming the way to do things – and soon the “fashion television media” will sit up and take notice. The “fashion print media” already has.

Welcome to Hollywood – or welcome to Horologywood! This is fun and the fine watch industry will get its message into the minds of the mass media junkies.

Soon, as I have said before in jest, there will be three types of watches:
1. The very expensive “fashion” watch.
2. The almost as expensive “fashion” watch.
3. The pedestrian watch that looks like one of the more expensive watches.

In truth, there will be:
1. The fine timepieces made by the best of manufacturers, with their own proprietary movements.
2. The fine watches from companies using the ETA movements of the world (but who create some of the most extraordinary watches on the market today).
And, of course,
3. The pedestrian watches – which were called, in earlier times, “fashion” watches, but which are not called that anymore because the higher end now holds that title. They are the watches you can pick up for $100, (more or less) i.e. the fun watches, the Swatch watches and the like.

NOTE: The first two will be the highest priced. Watch companies with their own movements will increase prices three to four times a year in the next five years.

So here we go into the fashion of things. Someone told me that watches have always been “the fashion thing!” I responded with, “yes they have, but only to those who knew anything about them.” The world is now getting a look at what previously had only been available to a few.

Thanks for watching.

— Urich