Friday, February 5, 2010

15th International Watch And Clock Fair – Samaya Bharati 2010

Finally! The day I had been eagerly waiting for (or so I thought) the past few months had arrived. And like their banner said, …Its Time For - 15th International Watch And Clock Fair. I am not kidding, look…(by Crazyfingers)


Bio and I, took a day off from work, grabbed the camera, put on our watches and were off!

I have to point something here, there was almost no or very little advertisement done for this fair. So not knowing what to expect, we were trying to rate the fair on a scale of 1-10 , with 10 being something like Basel World. Bio said he expected it to be a 4. I being a bit more optimistic gave it a 5.

On our way...

The famous Bandra-Worli Sea Link :p

Finally, we arrive at our destination - the Nehru Center


Seiko I think had the best setup. It was the first thing you saw when you entered the building.

They had a lot of watches on display and I was really happy to see the Spring Drive Spacewalk. This watch is stunning! The lovely lady there proudly told us some fact about the watch and proceeded to show us the other new models, all of which I have never seen before. I was however a lil disappointed not to see any Grand Seiko watches there. I believe they are sold only in Japan and I was really hoping to see one.

Titan, India's leading watch manufacturer, had a nice walk-in booth where you could see some of the the machines and tools they use. They even had a machine to laser print your name on the case back. Unfortunately, none of the automatic watches were on display.


They also had this machine to check the accuracy of your watch. The guy manning it said that if the reading was under 1, the watch is accurate. He demonstrated with his watch. The meter read just about 1, indicating that his watch was just about accurate, though it didn't mention anywhere how many seconds a day, the watch looses or gains. We both decided to give it a try anyway-

My Rolex Sub

and the result - it barely moved - highly accurate!

next was Bio's Edouard Lauzieres Tuscany-

and the result - again, the needle didn't move - "highly accurate" said the guy grinning

Also on display were some of the Titan Edge watches, which claim to be the slimmest watch in the Universe

Time for a quick wrist shot



It was a pleasant surprise to see Orient here. After hearing such rave reviews about the Mako, we immediately rushed over and asked the guy behind the counter whether they had one on display, and sure enough, they did!

The guy at the booth was pretty surprised that we knew about Orient watches and was really happy when I told him about all the good things I heard about them. From what I learnt, Orient as of now, have no plans of launching the brand here anytime soon. They were really interested in knowing what kind of watches do people normally wear here and whether Indians prefer bracelets or leather straps. I told him since its pretty humid here, we normally prefer bracelets. He immediately started taking notes about everything I was saying. I really hope they launch the brand here, although I am not sure how successful they will be. People generally prefer quartz movements, which was a bit of a concern to them.

I also asked the guy which watch he had on at the time. He pulled his sleeve back and proudly showed us his World Timer

There were a LOT of fashion brands here

I was told by the people at the Paco Rabanne booth that their watches are directly imported from France and have Swiss quartz movements.

Somewhere amongst all those fashion brands, we were able to find the Victorinox booth where they had the 500 Mecha (which is on my wish list)

Ah! HMT! With my recent fascination with this brand, I really wanted to check out all the new models they had to offer. They also had some larger sized dials (maybe 38-40mm) which might interest a lot of people.

Citizen was there too and no, they did not have the Campanola :(


Some more fashion brands




One such brand that caught our attention was Ice Watch. The are something similar to Toy Watch, with the colourful Submariner styled watches, running on the Miyota quartz movement. They were looking to launch their brand in India soon. With a price range of $80-$300 USD, they are in league with the other fashion brands and I honestly feel will do well if launched here.

Hey, what do we have here? Straps! They were very nice and available in all sizes and colours. The prices were pretty good too with the rubber straps going for Rs.350 ($8) and the leather ones from Rs.250 ($5-$6) to Rs.800 ($17). Unfortunately, they weren't selling any at the time so I had to make do by taking their business card to contact them later.



Apart from all this, there wasn't really something to get interested about and before we knew it, we were at the exit. We felt a bit disappointed and asked around if there was something else to be seen. There was! There was another section to be seen! We quickly headed over there only to find another small area full of clocks - the ones you have already seen at gift shops and some homes. There was this one neat mechanical clock but the guy at the booth was against me taking a pic of it :(

This was an interesting looking clock which is suppose to be very expensive but the price was not disclosed for some reason.

Thats pretty much about it. We were really hoping to see some big manufacturers like Rolex, TAG and Omega, which are pretty popular here, but they were nowhere to be seen. My optimistic rating of 5/10 now changed to 3/10. We decided to call it a day and grab a few drinks with friends before heading home.

Cheers!

13 comments:

James Elsener said...

Dear Crazyfingers,
Dear Bio,

Thank you very much for this wonderful posting.

We, of course, especially loved the part on the Tuscany. ;-)


Kindest regards from Switzerland,

James Elsener
Montres Edouard Lauzières S.A.

crazyfingers said...

You would be happy to know that I got quite a few compliments on the Tuscany that day!

James Elsener said...

I am more than happy that the Tuscany is admired.

You know we had fun at the fair in Bangalore and people praised our watches a lot, too.

We would love to find a good distributor in India to broaden our business there again.

By the way, from November 19 to 21, 2010 you will have another fair in Mumbai. It is called the International Watch Exhibition and will be held at the World Trade Center. There will be all in all just 25 exhibitors. As the booths are very expensive I presume that just a few of the higher priced brands will make it. It is way beyond our means. We could never recoup the cost. The fair is organised by the trade magazine Watch Market Review from Mumbai. Their feature editor, Mrs. Anieta Vaghaiwalla just droped in on me the other day during her visit to Switzerland.

If you ever get the chance, do ask Mihir Kharod and his son Hemal to contribute to your blog. They are the organisers of the fair you went to and publish the most respected trade magazine of the Indian watch trade called Tradepost. Would be for sure fun for the two of you to meet with them. If you ever do, please pass on my regards to them.

crazyfingers said...

Hey James,
Thanks for the heads up regarding the watch fair in November :) My brother and I are definitely going to be there with our camera (and hopefully, it'll be grander than the last one)
I'm sorry things didn't work out for you and the dealers in India. Hopefully, as time progresses, people start appreciating fine watchmaking. This will benefit the watch lovers as well as the watchmakers :)
I did get a copy of Tradepost at the fair, but never did get the time to go through it. Now that you've mentioned it, I'll definitely check it out and maybe try and get in touch with Mr Kharod. Ofcourse, I'll be only happy to pass on yout regards to him.
Thanks again and best regards.

Satya Mohanty said...

Hello Crazyfingers.Thanks for such a nice posting.I really love to see these pictures where i was physically presented in 2010.It was an great event.This year also its going to happen in feb.And i wil be a part of that mega event.Hope to meet u there.Thanks.
Regards,
Satya Mohanty.
Abhimanyu Timezone,
Orissa,INDIA

crazyfingers said...

Hi Sathya,
Thanks for vising our blog. Yes, looking forward to being at the next watch fair and meeting a fellow watch enthusiast :)
I just hope that they have some higher-end brands this year. Keeping my fingers crossed.

Best,
CF

Julia said...

Dear Crazyfingers,

thank you for your interesting and worthreading post. It is really one web source mentioning the Samaya Bharati Fair.
Hemal Kharod invited my company to visit the Fair this year and we decided to go to Mumbai.
Once again thanks for the information and useful pics. I don't know whether we meet there or not, cause I have no idea how you look like ^^ anyway, wish you a wonderful and more exciting visit.

Warm regards from snowy Moscow, Russia ^^
Julia,
Nika jewelry watches

crazyfingers said...

Hi Julia,
Glad you like our blog and found it useful.:)
It's good to know that you will be there for this year's watch fair. Its always nice to see brands from different countries in person rather than just having a look at the pics online. I hope you will be able to get a good idea about the Indian watch market.

I and Bio look forward to meeting you there :)

Best Regards,
CF

Omax Watches said...

Dear Crazyfingers,

Thanks for keeping us informed about the happenings of the last event of 2010. Omax watches have been launched in India quiet recently and this will our first participation in the Samay Bharti fair. We look forward to meet you there.

Best Regards,
Omax Watches

Victoria for Ice-watch said...

Ice-watch is very glad yo see that you mention and appréciate it!!

Our brand is gaining more more succes all over the world, with 4million watches sold in 2011!

Meet you at the Fair, in almost one week!!

crazyfingers said...

@ Omax Watches - Looking forward to seeing you at the watch fair :)

@ Victoria - Nice to know that Ice Watch will be there at the fair this year too. Also kudos for crossing 4 million :)

jyothi said...

You would be happy to know that I got quite a few compliments on the Tuscany that day!

Unknown said...

Hey, are there any of those watch strap sellers in India? Can't seem to find a good one.
Thanks.