Malcolm Lakin, managing editor: “The fair itself is bolder than years before — the people are becoming much more attentive and dynamic in their presentation of the companies. The brands are pushing themselves forward as a name. The brand is much more important than ever before. As I walk through the aisles, everyone looks positive. They have this air of watchmaking affluence. Even some of the smaller brands who are on relatively tight budgets are putting a lot of money into presenting themselves to the buyers and the general public. It's far removed from when I started coming here — then, everyone looked the same, now everyone looks different, everyone has their own character.
”I have a feeling that 2006 will be a boom year, because there are a lot of new collections. One of the things people are putting a lot of effort into is design. The bold, large watch is still very popular. They are taking it to extremes now — for example, Alpina last year introduced a regulator. This year they have come out with a 48mm regulator which is beautiful and very accessible to the eye.
“Companies can't get away with doing a standard version of a watch one year and the next year just changing a small detail and calling it a new model. The fashion watches have had a great influence on all of watchmaking. Companies have to not only produce something technically sound and beautifully finished, the watches have to make a statement. More and more companies are making this statement.
”As an example, there is a small company called Pilo, a company that is constantly innovating with mechanical watches and he's come up with a really beautiful design with a fantastic new dial and it has a tremendously influential look.
“From an editorial point of view, I was tremendously disappointed with the turnout at the Universal Genève press conference. They gave a press conference to introduce their new watches — they’ve gone back to their roots with mechanical watches. Out of the 200 journalists here at Basel, there were only ten in attendance and Universal Genève deserves to be noticed. They may have gone off track for the past couple of years but they are back on rails.”

Pierre Maillard, editor-in-chief: “The most interesting thing I've seen so far is Seiko’s presentation of their new mechanical Spring Drive Sonnerie, which has a very special gong inspired by the little bells from Buddhist temples. It is being sold for 110,000 Euro, which means Seiko's objective is to go into high watchmaking. I think it's important in the context of the whole watch industry, because Seiko is really trying hard to go into fields that have been, until now, solely occupied by the Swiss.”

Keith W. Strandberg, contributing writer: “The first full day of Basel started with a beautiful rainbow over the city first thing in the morning. As I ran over the bridge across the Rhein at 7:00 am, I was surprised to see a complete rainbow arching over the city. Probably a good omen for the 2006 fair and so far everyone seems very upbeat, optimistic and excited about the new products being presented.
”Two of the key words at BaselWorld 2006 are certainly uniqueness and design innovation. Watch companies know that today there are a lot of fine watches on the market and, in order to stand out, they have to be unique in several different phases. The watches they offer have to do more than just tell time — they have to have a unique design, provide interesting functionality, have a great look or a different way of doing things. If a company just offers a plain, old watch, it's hard for the customer to justify buying that watch.
“BaselWorld so far has offered some great product and I'm really looking forward to the following days as we discover what the rest of the watch world has to offer.”