Dear Diane,
Dear Shaded Viewers,
I just came home from the first day of the Salone del Mobile in Milan, but today I forgot my camera home so I will have to download all the press release’s images before I can do a good post…
For now, I can tell you about Baselworld, the watches and jewellry fair I attended two days ago in Basel. For watches, it’s the biggest in the world.
Most of watchmakers, as you all know, are from Switzerland…
There were many things going on. Swatch owns a lot of brands, from Tissot (nice vintage was exhibited)
to CK Calvin Klein (Natalia Vodianova was there as testimonial, she looks a little like Brooke Shields but thinner)
to Rado, who makes high.tech porcelain watches. Very good for summer nights’ discotheque… They cost up to 3000 euros. It looks like silver or steel, but it’s porcelain. Unbelievable.
Then I saw some nice ideas at Lorenz… (using illustrators)
And the New Russians’ must of the winter, the Gucci watch.
Then I went to have lunch in a very fancy restaurant, with vintage furniture and an elegant maitresse, the Bon Vivant restaurant, in Basel:
Back to the fair, downstairs, I discovered the secrets of watchmaking and jewelry making. Here is a guy looking in a microscope some jewellery.
Here some tools for making a watch (this set costs 35.000 euros).
And how the rings come out of a molding (cheap rings, I think, even if it’s gold): they look like a fruit, or a flower.
The ugliest item I saw (it’s real diamonds):
And some beautiful images of the jewellery section:
Yes, it’s all real: rubys, pearls, emeralds…
Then back to Milan, by train. With a nice view through the Alps
Later,
B.
