This year, it’s all about the new Clifton collection at Baume & Mercier. Harking back to a 1950s aesthetic, the focus is on variations of a classic round case design with simple and clear applied numerals and hour markers. Although visually retro, one very marked thing about them which makes them contemporary is their size, about which I will elaborate later.

There are three different Clifton sub-collections with a total of nine models, which means that for those who like the Clifton look there’s fairly much one for every taste, but the brand’s focus, their flagship, is the elegant Clifton 1830 (aka Ref. 10060).

The 1830 is a very modern-sized 42mm and 8.8mm thick and sits quite comfortably and low on the wrist. This model comes only in one metal/ colour combination – red gold with an opaline silver dial that. It has gold hour and minute hands and a blue seconds hand on the sub dial. The dial is curved to match the domed sapphire crystal. Inside is the manual wind La Joux-Perret Cal. 7381 with a power reserve of 90 hours. Although it is time-only, it has clearly been positioned as the flagship, with a 12,000 CHF price to match. The other Cliftons in the collection start at around 2,500 CHF.

At considerably less than the price of the 1830 are my favourite of the models, and also the most complicated – the Calendars (10055 – blue dial, 10057 – silver dial), which are priced at just under 5,000 CHF.

Featuring a beautiful deep blue dial, this triple date moonphase has a satin-finished stainless steel case measuring a pretty large 43mm, with a thickness of 12.2mm. The two iterations are both stainless steel but it comes in either a silver or blue dial with gold and silver hours/ indices respectively.

Some people have mentioned that they find it a bit too big. Whilst I acknowledge that it could be a tad smaller, I did not find that it was overly large for me.

The other Clifton models have date windows (10058, 10059), date and seconds sub dial (10052, 10053, 10054, 10099, 10100) and differ in terms of dial/ hand colours (including a brown dial) and case metal (stainless steel and red gold). As I mentioned at the outset, Baume & Mercier have made sure that there’s a Clifton to cover many tastes and preferences. Of these, I find the darker dialled ones the most appealing.

For those for whom size matters, here’s a quick rundown of the sizes of the nine models in the Clifton range :

10058, 10059 – 39mm
10052, 10053, 10054, 10099, 10100 – 41mm
10055, 10057 – 43mm

For more information on the Clifton range, visit Baume & Mercier’s website.

Categories: Baume & Mercier, SIHH 2013, Watch shows, watches