5 Spectacular Jewelry Watches That Dazzled at Baselworld

In a sea of sober, scaled-down watches and a dearth of high complications on the men’s side, high-jewelry watches emerged almost by default as the stars of Baselworld. The ongoing vintage trend continues to dictate a pared-down aesthetic in men’s watches, and gem-set pieces have swept in to balance things out by going for the other extreme: big, bold, and glamorous. Mechanical movements, including high complications, are increasingly replacing quartz in high-jewelry watches. There is also a trend toward using higher quality gems, custom cuts, creative settings, and much bigger diamonds—a typical bezel is set with under a carat of diamonds total, whereas this year, three to six carats on the bezel is not unusual. Brands are also getting creatively scientific with settings, designing pieces to let as much light into the sides of gems as possible. Prong settings and invisible settings, with less metal surrounding the stones, are taking precedence over the old way of sinking the gems into drilled hole settings. Here are some jewelry watches that helped put some dazzle in Basel this year.