Business Traveller looks back on the finest watches of 2017 – and makes a few predictions for the year to come.

As the year’s end approaches, we look back at the changes and trends in the watch world, before giving credit to those that really stood out.

From an industry perspective, Swiss watch exports rose steadily over the summer, and the Chinese market was resurgent, up more than 20 per cent year-on-year. Closer to home, the falling pound has made London one of the most attractive places to buy luxury watches; no Brexit woes for the likes of Watches of Switzerland or Selfridges’ Wonder Room (now run by European retail giant Bucherer).

Caution has been the name of the game for many watch brands in 2017; the result of cutbacks over the past two years was that this year’s crop of watches focused on aesthetics rather than technical developments, as well as lower prices. The cause may be uninspiring but the watches have been refreshingly simple – maybe the market had become bloated from complicated watch making.

This relative austerity has helped create the dominant trend for trawling the back catalogues for designs to revive. This has only intensified, bringing with it standout watches such as Blancpain’s Tribute to Fifty Fathoms Mil-Spec, as well as less well-known reissues.

The bulk of new watches may have little that’s new inside them, but instead of the kind of “innovation” we were used to when business was booming (ever-more intricate and arcane whirligigs for oligarchs) we are seeing a handful of brands modernising the basics of a mechanical movement. Panerai’s Lab-ID is one such project, boasting ground-breaking reliability, and there have been similar efforts from Zenith with its Defy Lab. A little commercial pressure is no bad thing.

Here we present the watches that stood out in 2017, either for doing a simple job better than their rivals or for doing something unique and worthy of attention. They’re not necessarily the “best” watches of the year, but I have allowed myself one personal favourite (number 9)…

1) ACTION HERO OF THE YEAR – TAG Heuer Autavia Jack Heuer Special Edition

All-action sports chronographs were everywhere this year, from Tudor’s Heritage Black Bay Chrono to Blancpain’s Fifty Fathoms Bathyscaphe. But my pick is the TAG Heuer Autavia – specifically, here in a guise created to commemorate legendary former CEO and honorary chairman Jack Heuer’s 85th birthday. It swaps the normal bezel, all easy-to-read numerals, for a slightly more techy steel one and, as a result, looks better on a steel bracelet. Reviving the Autavia was a stroke of marketing genius on TAG’s part (if not an overly risky decision) but it has been executed with a sure hand.

2) DAILY WEARER OF THE YEAR – IWC Ingenieur Automatic

Making a watch that you could wear day in, day out and have no complaints sounds like such a simple prospect – indeed, it’s what most people look for. But simplicity is a hard thing to get right; this year, IWC has nailed it with the Ingenieur Automatic, which sees the model return to a round case after an oversized, chunky phase.

3) BEST FIRST WATCH – Junghans Form A

Even the most seasoned watch collectors start somewhere, and if you’re taking your first step into mechanical watches this year, you could do a lot worse than the Junghans Form A: an automatic movement, handsome looks rooted in mid-century design at an approachable price, and, as an added bonus, it’s unlikely all of your friends will have one.

4) UNEXPECTED SUCCESS OF THE YEAR – Hublot Classic Fusion Italia Independent

By now we shouldn’t be surprised at anything Hublot does, but putting a houndstooth cloth across the dial of a Classic Fusion, and continuing the same material into the strap? Like wearing double denim, it absolutely shouldn’t work – yet in this case, it absolutely does. The ceramic chronograph is my unexpected hit of
the year.

5) MOST UNDERAPPRECIATED WATCH – Bremont Airco Mach 1

It’s possible I am in a minority here but if so, I am hard pushed to see why. True, in downsizing its signature “Trip-Tick” case, Bremont has had to compromise on the spec, but unless you’re Andy McNab, you‘ll not be needing the majority of that precision engineering. With 100-metre water resistance and a hardened steel case, it’s tough enough for everyday life, and now comes in a size – 40mm – that many will love. There isn’t much else about it to make headlines; with those pipette hands and on-trend flashes of colour, it is definitely more about style than superlatives. But the baby Bremont is a grower, trust me.

6) HERITAGE REISSUE OF THE YEAR: 1 – Vertex M100

The history books have been well and truly pillaged of late in the quest for “new” watches. Hence two awards on a retro theme; the first goes to Vertex for reviving not just a watch but an entire brand. The M100 flirts with kitsch but has found a place in my heart; time will tell what the next chapter of the Vertex story will be.

7) HERITAGE REISSUE OF THE YEAR: 2 – Hamilton Intra-Matic 68 Autochrono

Whether you love the incessant revival of bygone watch designs or not, there are some things that just work on a watch, and black and white (known as “panda” or “reverse panda”) chronograph dial design is one of them. The Intra-Matic has a great name, a retro logo and clean lines; what’s not to like?

8) BEST VALUE WATCH OF THE YEAR – Christopher Ward C60 Trident Day Date Cosc

In a year when all of Switzerland is seemingly counting the pennies, noses may be put out of joint at this choice. But where else can you get a chronometer-certified, 600-metre rated, good-looking dive watch with a ceramic bezel for under £1,000? Christopher Ward’s quality and attention to detail have improved in the past few years, making this a serious contender.

9) OVERALL WATCH OF THE YEAR – A Lange and Sohne 1815 Chronograph

The 1815 Chronograph isn’t a wholly new watch, but was given a black dial for the first time in 2017, a step that elevated it from excellent to faultless. It was already one of the best-made hand-wound chronographs in the world; now, with a black lacquered dial, it is the best looking, too. Purists will appreciate that it fills a void left by the equivalent black dial Patek Philippe 5170 chronograph (now-discontinued) – at a far lower price, as well as adding a flyback function. On top of this, it is the perfect size at 39.5mm, and a delight to operate.

10) EUROMILLIONS JACKPOT PURCHASE – Audemars Piguet Royal Oak in yellow gold

I give this award to the Royal Oak in yellow gold not because it will make the biggest dent in your wallet (although given its weight, it will dent most things) but because it most befits the Lamborghini lifestyle you will now assume. Unashamedly ostentatious but so alluring – a real guilty-pleasure watch.

11) MOST HOROLOGICALLY HARDCORE – Marine Equation Marchante 5887

Watch nerds (and watchmakers) love nothing more than a complication that takes whole minutes to explain and serves almost no real purpose. The running equation of time is exactly that (in essence, the difference between time relative to the sun, and time relative to the Earth’s own rotation), and here Breguet combines it with a perpetual calendar and tourbillon.

12) FASHION STATEMENT OF THE YEAR – Rado True Stratum

2017 was a strong year for watches crying out to be worn with a black roll neck and stern haircut – Bulgari’s Octo Finissimo or the Ressence Type 1 Squared spring to mind. But Rado takes the gong for its collaborative True Designer series, the best of which is the True Stratum, created with Austrian designer Rainer Mutsch.

FIVE PREDICTION FOR 2018

1) We will have a new Rolex Submariner 

I have been telling anyone who’ll listen that “next year, there’s going to be a new Submariner” for two years, and while it hasn’t happened yet, as time passes my odds increase of being right. So I’m doubling down on this one – a new Sub to be revealed at Baselworld 2018 in March, causing a total frenzy among Rolex nerds.

2) Social sales 

By the end of 2018, at least one major brand will open up Instagram as a regular sales platform. We’ve already seen Omega use it to stoke interest for a limited-edition Speedmaster, and other lifestyle brands are wise to the one-tap buying potential of Insta.

3) No more complicated watches

This was a fairly quiet year for a lot of the usual purveyors of complex watchmaking, as brands have shied away from the investment needed as sales dropped. Business does seem to be picking up, but the time taken to develop new watches means it could be 2019 before we see much in the way of fancy new tricks.

4) 1980s style 

There is zero chance that big watch companies will stop mining the past for ideas, but I think we will see them move away from the 1960s and ’70s to dig up some of the more interesting looks of the 1980s – the more switched-on, such as Audemars Piguet, have already.

5) A serious Swiss smartwatch 

Call me cynical, but I don’t quite believe the hype around the smart efforts by TAG Heuer, Montblanc et al so far. If there is a luxury Swiss smartwatch that can genuinely rival Apple, it hasn’t surfaced yet. In 2018, it just might, but don’t ask me who’s going to make it.