SalonQP is the high point of the year for lovers of watches. As Britain's only luxury watch show, it is where exhibitors gather to reveal their new creations.
I went along with an eye out for new women's watches as well as brands that showed creativity and flair in their designs. And I was not disappointed. My first stop was Jaeger-LeCoultre, where I had the chance to find out more about its growing collection of women's watches, including the new Cordonnet Duetto and the elegant RendezVous models. Hermès showed me the delightful Pendentif Boule necklace watch as well as the new Le Temps Suspendu models for women, and I watched a leather worker painstakingly make straps as beautiful as any Kelly bag.
Chopard presented an array of spectacular diamond-set watches as well as the new L.U.C. Spirit collection, with dials inspired by the colour of cognac, champagne and Burgundy. Ulysse Nardin cleverly solved the problem of chipped nails from fiddling with the winding crown by inventing a new setting system for the diamond-set Jade watch designed to minimise wear on nails. TAG Heuer had Nikki Lauda's original gold Carrera chronograph on show alongside a more sober stainless steel chronograph similar to the one James Hunt wore.
Piaget's Emperador Coussin Moonphase was one of my favourite watches of the show, even if it is a man's model. The sumptuousness of the blue dial, with its realistic moon in a rose gold case, is utter, undiluted luxury. Vacheron Constantin took the curtain call with its ballerina watch. Inspired by Degas' sketches and paintings of Parisian ballerinas in the Belle Epoque, the watch dial is decorated with a dancer painted using the 'grisaille' enamelling technique for a delicate and feminine effect.
