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The stand of the Biel-based brand Milus at the last Baselworld watch fair in March 2019.(Keystone / Georgios Kefalas) ...

Patek Philippe's steel Grandmaster Chime comes with a reversible dial plate, which can be seen here(Christie's) ...

Watches on display at the SIHH fair last year (Keystone) When Fabiee Lupo, who runs the Salon Inteational de la Haute Horlogerie watch fair in Geneva, says its ambition is “to become a kind of Davos of watchmaking”, this is not just an airy ambition of hers. By comparing SIHHexteal link, which opened this week, to the World Economic Forumexteal link at Davos, with its political and corporate heavyweight guests and policy-setting discussions, Lupo is continuing the polarisation between her more exclusive fair and Baselworldexteal link, the commercial engine of the watch world. Part of this ambition is about SIHH’s exhibitors, which already include Cartier and Jaeger-LeCoultre. (S...

Three blue barracks - known as "Conference Row" - coect North Korea (visible across the street) and the South. It's here that the armistice agreement between the countries was signed in 1953, though the conflict between them technically still persists(swissinfo.ch) For more than six decades, Swiss soldiers have been based on the border between North Korea and South Korea, known as the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ). Despite its name, it is in fact the most militarised zone in the world. On one side are two million North Korean soldiers and 14,000 artillery guns pointed at Seoul. The other side is guarded by 600,000 South Korean soldiers.T...

Mode hi-tech factories like this Rolex one in Biee are far from the image of the small watch craftsman(Keystone) Hervé Munz interviewed more than 150 watchmakers across the industry’s heartland in the Jura region of weste Switzerland for his book, “La transmission en jeu. Apprendre, pratiquer et patrimonialiser l’horlogerie" (Transmission at stake: Leaing, practising and passing down heritage watchmaking).He looks into an industry that has undergone extensive industrialization in the last 20 years, a phenomenon that he says has devalued the traditional watchmaking profession.swissinfo.ch: Swiss watchmaking has seen increased automat...

The Swiss rigorously check that people have not spent more than €300 each on goods from France,(Keystone) Alteatively, you can go up an escalator, along a corridor and cross into the French sector where the same multinational car hire companies will offer you a different deal.Swiss regulations insist that hire cars have winter tyres fitted between the autumn and spring and they will also have a “vignette”, paying the aual CHF40 ($40) road tax allowing the car to drive on Switzerland’s motorways. Cars hired from the French side have neither and often differ in specifications, but are generally much cheaper. From the same rental compa...

luca1 Luca Luca Orduña, 27, put all his eggs in one basket. At the age of 22, he went to Japan for the first time and set himself up in business. Fascinated by the varied cuisine and the natural environment, this adventurous entrepreneur still isn’t thinking about retuing to Switzerland. As the manager of a company that distributes Swiss clocks...

The famous quartz watch, a Swiss invention subsequently commercialized and mass-marketed by Japanese companies, celebrates its 50th birthday this month. First unveiled at a competition organized by Centre Electronique Horloger (CEH) in Neuchâtel in 1967, quartz timepieces quickly tued Swiss (and inteational) watch markets upside-down. The iovation? Using crystal quartz as a regulator of time...

Will lovers of quality Swiss watches have to spend hundreds of francs to get their favourite timepieces fixed? (Thomas Ke/swissinfo.ch) Even a Swiss-brand watch will not run forever.Nowadays, minor repairs can be very expensive or take months because many specialist watchmakers no longer re...

(Keystone) Here are some of the stories we will feature in the week begiing June 19. (Keystone) Monday If your Swiss watch breaks, it is becoming less likely that you’ll be able to get it fixed in the shop where you bought it. We look at the reasons why. (Susan Misicka/swissinfo.c...

Tick bites can cause serious illnesses(Keystone)There are more ticksaround already this season in Switzerland than usual. Where do you need to look out for them and what should you do while you’re visiting the country?Why are there more ticks around...

The mechanical watch (here a model from 1956) went out of fashion before making a comeback after the year 2000(Keystone)The Baselworld watch show, the most important event on the global watch fair calendar, opens in Basel on Thursday. It comes as the Swiss watchmaking industry emerges from its longe...

Christian Häy knows all of the cows by name, and they know him by sight. (swissinfo.ch) If your job description is alpine ‘midhusband’ to dozens of pregnant and nursing cows, what exactly does that entail? When I hear the cowbells, I know I’ve got the right man on the other end of the phone line. It’s Christian Häy – a retired farmer who spends his summers looking after cattle on an alpine pasture in easte Graubünden. “You’re welcome to come visit – as long as I’m not too busy delivering calves,” Häy tells me, highlighting one of his key responsibilities when he’s working on the high meadow, Porteiner Alp. This year he’s looking after 75 cows, about half of which were pregnant when they ...

Do consumers still love Swiss luxury watches, like this one from Omega? (Keystone) The past year has been nightmarish for the Swiss watch industry, and this trend continued over the summer. Swiss watch export data – a closely watched barometer of trends across the sector – showed a 14.2% fall year-on-year to July, provoked by the combined impact of weak global economic growth, a collapse in Hong Kong, terrorism in Europe and competition from smartwatches. But some have spotted the early signs of a tuaround, in part prompted by Britain’s vote to leave the European Union in June. While Switzerland’s Swatch Group’s operating profits fell 54% to CHF353 million ($367 million) in the first hal...

Many shops sell second-hand watches in the US, like the Toueau shop in Manhattan Destocking new watches and selling them through alteative chaels is a taboo subject in the Swiss watchmaking industry. It’s a growing phenomenon spurred on by the business slowdown in some regions of the world and the fact that retailers are drowning in unsold goods. In watchmaking circles, they call him Momo the Cleaner. Maurice Goldberger, founder and manager of Canadian company Chiron Inc. specialises in the sale of unsold goods manufactured by the most prestigious brands. His business is booming. In 2015, he bought up around the world more than €500 million (CHF541 million) worth of new luxury items...