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Already for the 15th consecutive time CH24 selects and awards the most interesting new timepieces form the past […]
2024 Watch of the Year – Swiss Road Trip with competition’s statuettes (part 2)
The competition jury continues the journey across Switzerland, to personally deliver awards to the manufacturers awarded in the jubilee, 15th edition of the CH24 Watch of the Year.
The following article is a continuation of the: Watch of the Year 2024 – Swiss Road Trip with competition statuettes (part 1).
In the first part of our report from the Swiss Road Trip with the “CH24 Watch of the Year” statuettes, we visited Geneva, Meyrin, Le Sentier and finally La Chaux-de-Fonds, presenting the first four competition statuettes. The second part begins in Solothurn, a city less associated with watches and watchmaking, before stopping in Saint-Imier and finally Schaffhausen, where we presented the most important prize a.d.2024.
Porsche Design Timepieces (Solothurn – 85 km from La Chaux-de-Fonds) – “Public Prize”
The next stop on the Swiss Road Trip took us to the place closest to the electric heart of our Porsche Taycan – the city of Solothurn. Although only the watch branch of Porsche Design is based here, it is obviously a brand belonging to the German corporation nonetheless.
Porsche Design has been creating special editions of watches for years – mainly for Porsche customers. They can personalize their model of choice almost freely, using a convenient configurator and thousands of possible options. The portfolio also includes the Chronograph 1 line, referring to the historic, black Porsche Design watch from 1972, with which the brand’s adventure with watches began.
It was the Porsche Design Chronograph 1, created in collaboration with Hodinkee magazine, that gained recognition from CH24 readers and took home the statuette in the “Public Prize” category. The award was received at the company’s headquarters in Solothurn by Rolf Bergmann (CEO) and Olaf Leistert (CFO).
Longines (Saint-Imier – 70 km from Solothurn) – „Ladies watch priced up to 3 500 euro”
In the undoubtedly charming Saint-Imier, surrounded by mountains, Longines has had its headquarters for almost two centuries. The brand with the winged hourglass in its logo is one of the leading players in the market segment, which offers very well-made mechanical watches at a still reasonable and affordable price. Just as much as on men’s models, Longines also focuses on refined watches for women, perfectly meeting the needs of female customers.
This year’s category winner, the Longines Conquest 34, wonderfully combines the qualities of a sports watch with a pinch of elegance, emphasized by a mint green dial. The WOTY statuette was received by Matthias Breschan (CEO of the brand) and Bernardo Tribolet (VP Marketing). For Longines, this is yet another “CH24 Watch of the Year” award, and all of them are proudly presented in the refreshed lobby of the manufacture.
Day 3
H. Moser & Cie. (Neuhausen – 180 km from St. Imier) – “Sports watch”
From the perspective of the entire, modern watch industry, Edouard Meylan – CEO of the H. Moser & Cie. – could easily be considered an enfant terrible, in a positive sense of the word. No one breaks the rules and regulations of traditional watchmaking with such pleasure, and at the same time does it with such grace and success. Moser created a new way of looking at mechanical watches, with particular emphasis on their non-standard, canon-defying design. Supported, of course, by excellent mechanics, created in a modest manufacture in Neuhausen am Rhein.
Since the Meylan brothers were absent due to other duties during our visit, the award for the Streamliner Small Seconds Blue Enamel was accepted by Rolf Gnädinger (CFO H. Moser & Cie.). And before we set off on the short journey to the last stop of the Swiss Road Trip, we could see up close how, among other things, balance springs are made in-house in the manufacture. Moser produces around a quarter of a million of them each year, delivering the lion’s share of production to external customers.
IWC Schaffhausen (Schaffhausen – 4 km from Neuhausen) – “Grand Prix” and “High watchmaking”
After almost three days of our Swiss travels through the winning factories of this year’s “CH24 Watch of the Year”, we have reached the last, and in a way the most important, stop of the journey. In Schaffhausen, on the bank of the Rhine at Baumgartenstrasse, the IWC factory has its historic headquarters. The brand, which belongs to the Richemont Group, is considered a creator of classic watches that respect tradition but do not shy away from modernity. One of the icons of the maison has for decades been the “Portugieser” – a timepiece originally designed for seafarers, continuously manufactured in Schaffhausen, in a practically unchanged form to this day.
The year 2024 will be remembered at IWC as the 90th birthday of the legendary watchmaker Kurt Klaus (all the best!) and the premiere of one of the most complicated and unique watches in its history – the Portugieser Eternal Calendar. This is a truly unique version of a perpetual calendar, with precision pushed to the limits of watchmaking capabilities. Suffice it to say that its moon phases are so accurate that they will not be off by a single day for the next 45,000,000 years (that is forty-five million).
IWC is this year the winner of two “CH24 Watch of the Year” awards in the “High Watchmaking” category and also the most prestige title – the “Grand Prix”. The awards were received from us in Schaffhausen by Christoph Grainger-Herr (CEO of the IWC manufacture) and Christian Knoop (Creative Director of IWC).
3 days in Switzerland, hundreds of kilometres covered, beautiful views, fantastic company of fellow jurors, 8 visited manufactures and their representatives receiving statuettes from us for the best watches of the past 12 months. The Swiss Road Trip turned out to be a great idea and an extraordinary adventure.
Tomasz Kiełtyka (CH24 founder)
The Swiss Road Trip on the trail of the winners of the “CH24 Watch of the Year” competition has come to a happy end, and the competition statuettes have been hand-delivered to all the winning manufacturers. Our mission has been a success, supported by the modern and surprisingly comfortable technology of the electric Porsche Taycan. Thank you for your attention and we already invite you to the “CH24 Watch of the Year” – the 2025 edition.
