As a matter of fact, behind the condition we have faced, there are more complicated politics and economics reasons. But, I am still very delight that we can cooperate with the Foundation de la Haute Horlogerie’s (“FHH, ” a third-party entity set up typically by Richemont to systematize SIHH among other things). The FHH has made up their mind to bring 9 famous timepiece firms, not big but significant. From many aspects, in my point of view, this is a positive sign that is dedicated and contributed by the whole Swiss watch manufactory. Actually, this is the core component of their success from generations to generations. Though, for customers and people outside of this industry, those timepiece companies possess distinct competitive features, internally, many talent and skills are shared among those companies and support the whole Swiss replica watch industry to survive. Thanks for them, watches are no longer a mere necessary daily life tool, but also luxury items.
Gone from SIHH 2016 is Ralph Lauren watches (which was a joint venture enterprise between Ralph Lauren and Richemont), and a new hall will be established and named Carre des Horlogers in their place (literally, “square of watchmakers”). This is being touted as an “exhibition within an exhibition” because instead of the larger, more delicate booths for much larger brands like , Montblanc, IWC, Jaeger-LeCoultre, etc… , the participating brands within the Carre des Horlogers will be contained together in a larger room with smaller spaces for each one. This is actually not completely unlike where most of these brands typically formally display at shows like Baselworld (held a few months later in Basel, Switzerland).
The known reality for anyone who has been participating in SIHH is that all of these timepiece brands were, for the most part, already showing somewhere in Geneva during the SIHH show week each year in January. As a matter of fact, for a long time, these “outside exhibitions” were an internal point of contention for the SIHH managers due to that they did not like the fact that other brands displayed their products around town in Geneva during the same time period. The mentality being that because SIHH and its participating brands put so much effort and resources into bringing both replica watch retailers and media to town for the show, it was an unfair exploitation of their efforts for other brands to be taking advantage of the presence of key people in watch sales and media who attend the event from the world.
So, instead of fighting the reality that high-end independent timepiece makers are taking meetings with watch customers and media during the time of the SIHH event, the organizers simply decided to incorporate them into the event. It is entirely possible that this is truly for the better, even though there will, of course, still be some other brands that will display their new products on display around town in Geneva.
Not until few years ago, several brands which are not included in Richemont group are also can be found at SIHH, for instance Greubel Forsey, replica Audemars Piguet and Richard Mille which have very important partnership with SIHH. However, this would not happen before. You only can find brands which are part of Richemont group. What is more impressive would be that since there are lots of new brands come in, the volume of the event would become much larger. The SIHH add nine timepiece brands at one time is seemed as a bold move because in the past, adding or removing a participating SIHH brand is considered a very slow procedure.