It has been a long time since Patek Philippe gave us a skeletonized watch, and the Ref. 5180/1 showcased at this year’s Baselworld is definitely well worth the wait.

Featuring an ultra-thin self-winding caliber 240 movement with a 22K gold mini-rotor integrated into the plate, this watch is simply a joy to behold.

To fully appreciate a skeletonized watch, try imagining the number of days, hours, and minutes it takes to painstakingly chip away the dial, plates, bridges, and cocks to their bare minimun, and still achieve a fully functional timepiece.

Luxury watchmakers are well positioned to escape a possible slowdown in consumer spending as they target wealthy customers who are increasingly willing to splash out on extravagant and unique watches.

Swiss watchmaker Romain Jerome’s “Day&Night” watch — which does not tell the time, only whether it is night or day — sold out within 48 hours of its launch earlier this year as watch fanatics snapped up the $300,000 timepiece.

“When you ask people what is the ultimate luxury, 80 percent answer ‘time’. Then when you look at other studies, 67 percent don’t look at their watch to tell what time it is,” Chief Executive Yvan Arpa told Reuters on Friday at Baselworld, the watch and jewellery industry’s largest annual trade fair.

“Why do people buy expensive watches? To have a trophy. A watch (costing) $9 gives the time as well as a watch at $500,000, so they really buy a trophy,” Arpa said.

The “Day&Night” watch uses the complicated Tourbillon movement — invented to overcome earth’s gravity which used to affect the accuracy of watches — which lures watch connoisseurs as well as fashion aficionados.

The Geneva-based company, founded in 2004, also has an order backlog of up to two-and-a-half years for its “Titanic DNA” watch, which is made from steel and coal from the Titanic and can cost as much as $500,000.

“If you do something that is different, which is interesting, it pays,” Arpa said.

NEW MARKETS BOOM

Luxury watchmakers are also banking on buoyant demand from emerging markets, such as Asia and the Middle East to offset a slowdown in the United States.

“The first quarter of the year has been very good — following the same trend as last year and last year was a record year for the watch industry and for the major luxury companies in general,” Philippe Mougenot, president of Chanel’s fine jewellery and watches division, told Reuters.

“Now we are a bit on the look out to see what consumption will be (like) within the next months in the States … There is a lot of psychologically negative talk through the press and this may have some impact,” Mougenot said.

“But the big difference now (compared) with 10 years ago is that we have new markets that were not existing at that time,” he said.

Chanel has seen its high-end watch and jewellery products selling “astonishingly well”. One its most pricey pieces is the “J12 18 place Vendome” watch, costing 550,000 euros ($864,100).

And the head of Swiss watchmaker La Montre Hermes, part of French luxury group Hermes International, has also seen strong sales.

“During a crisis, people have another level of consciousness. It doesn’t mean that they will not buy, it is just that they are looking more carefully at what they buy,” La Montre Hermes CEO Emmanuel Raffner told Reuters.

The new Mecchaniche Veloci’s Crocodile strap 4-valve watch still shows the time as others do and looks like yet another kiddo watch in the making.

It has a Royal Blue Crocodile strap along with its unique feature of 4-valves having high-precision dials with Swiss mechanical and automatic movements.

The dial colors are kiddish considering the look and feel of the watch as of a white face with canary yellow dials.

Hello Kitty is the best-known of the many Sanrio characters. Created in the early 70’s it was initialy marketed to the children-teen age group, but in recent years the Hello Kitty logo can be seen making cameos on products for all ages. While these watches may look playfull, they pack some serious bling, they retail for around 2 grand and have a stunning diamond bezel.

They’re available with black, white or pink patent leather straps with square or round faces and various cutesy Hello Kitty graphics. Each one has a 0.89 total carat weight and a pink saphire flower denoting 12. Available for around $2,000, the whole collection can be seen here.

The ultra-thin L.U.C XP is now available in rose or white gold with a slate-grey dial.

Movement is the automatic Chopard in-house caliber L.U.C. 96HM with 29 jewels, beating at 28,800 bphy with a power reserve of 70 hours. The caliber is 3.3mm thick!

The case measures 39.5mm X 6.8mm. The crystal is sapphire.

With the Octo Mosaic, the brand continues to build bridges, this time between contemporary horology, Western traditions and Middle Eastern culture.

Essentially a self-winding GMT Perpetual Calendar with all markers in Arabic, this watch – at first glance- appears to confirm that Swiss brands are styling and building products specifically for certain markets.

Then again, aside from this (and the color), the watch remains true to the Gerald Genta aesthetic (44.5mm diameter, 12.45mm height) with the trademark octagonal case (white gold).