Reflecting On This Year’s Salon Belles Montres 2015

More than thirty watch brands and the Fondation de la Haute Horlogerie welcomed 12,000 visitors to the Carrousel du Louvre in Paris last week-end for the ninth edition of the Salon Belles Montres – similar numbers to SalonQP in London. Just two weeks after the Paris attacks and amid the arrival of 150 heads of state in the city for an environmental summit, collectors, dedicated watch lovers and other aficionados braved the traffic and general ambiance to meet the brands and discover their latest creations.

The perfect opportunity to admire the timepieces and discuss with the watchmakers, the Salon also provided the possibility to purchase timepieces for the first time, and some brands felt this aspect should be emphasized for next year.

Beauty, emotion and prices were however all evoked at the show, as summed up by Tag Heuer CEO and President of the LVMH Watch Division Jean-Claude Biver during one of the conferences: “The price to pay for a beautiful watch is above all the price of the emotion it brings to you”.

Initiation workshops, individual brand demonstrations and presentations, and thematic exhibitions completed the horological experience. Although some are very recent, many of the pieces on display have already been covered in detail by Haute Time. Here is a selection that we (re)discovered with pleasure:

– the Zeitwerk Minute Repeater from A. Lange & Söhne (close to half a million Euros worth of emotion) and the second-generation Lange 1 with its outsize jumping date at midnight;

– the GPHG award-winning Sports watch Pelagos and Heritage Black Bay Black with a new black bezel from Tudor;

-the Historiques Cornes de Vache 1955 Chronograph and the Heure Romantique from the Heures Créatives at Vacheron Constantin;

-and the Elite 6150 and Chronomaster Open 1969 from Zenith.

Next year’s edition of the Paris Salon Belles Montres is already being planned by the organizers; hopefully it will be under more clement skies for an even larger turnout.

Photo Credit: Haute Time. For more information, please visit the official Salon Belles Montres website. Follow Haute Time on Instagram to catch all of the new releases as they happen.