When I talked business with Edouard Meylan, CEO of H. Moser and Cie., he, as always, kept it real. “Some markets are amazing and booming. The Middle East, the US and Europe are quite stable, so the big question mark is Asia. Retailers in Asia are very cautious, but that could change very quickly. And you can have great surprises in that region with collectors buying very expensive watches, but it is really binary. I would say that the standard businesspeople want to wait and see for the first quarter,” said the head of a company making 1,500 watches per year.

When it comes to sheer, instantly recognisable beauty, few watches can match the drop-lugged precious works of Kari Voutilainen. The Finn is a former teacher at the top Swiss watchmaking school Wostep. In 2002, Voutilainen started the brand that carries his name and soon became famous for his own kind of energy-conserving escapement, very large balance wheels and a unique balance system combining a Breguet overcoil with a Grossmann Curve. And his guilloche and enamel dials are so perfect they might have led Plato to rethink his allegory of the cave.

With Type 2, Ressence addresses a real problem with mechanical watches: unreliability. Founder and industrial designer Benoît Mintiens calls his smart crown system the e-Crown, which allows the fully mechanical automatic watch to be connected with your smartphone. When it is, you simply tap the glass a couple of times for the watch to set itself automatically – even if it has not been used for months.

This practical feature aside, the mechanics are also singular: the separately rotating discs for hours, minutes and seconds move thanks to magnetic transmission.

“We have improved mechanical watches when it comes to legibility, wearability, trust and functionality. No more do you have to double-check the time on your phone,” says Ressence brand director Gaëtan Gaye.

A somewhat related idea can be found in the AMC from the independent pioneer Urwerk. Here it is, however, about setting and controlling the automatic watch when it is not worn. You plug it into the centre of a rather cumbersome, 35-kilo Atomolith – an atomic clock. This enables an ex-machina dialogue with the watch on three levels: synchronising the watch with the atomic clock, adjusting its rate and winding the mainspring.

The Atomolith thus becomes a spectacular vitrine for showcasing the AMC. This space fleet aesthetic works perfectly for the sci-fi-oriented universe initiated by design director Martin Frei and watchmaker Felix Baumgartner 22 years ago.

MB&F, founded in 2005 by Max Büsser, has become the most famous independent watchmaking showcase in the world. At SIHH, the spotlight was on the Horological Machine No. 6 Final Edition. These house the last eight of the 100 movements produced. Sharing the biomorphic traits, central flying tourbillon and spherical time indicators with the previous 92, this model, however, employs stainless steel for the case.

MB&F is also bringing the table clock into the 21st century in partnership with L’Epée 1839. The 10th collaborative clock is called Medusa – like the jellyfish – an obsession that started when Max’s wife was stung in 2013. The 2.5-kilo green, pink or blue top of the clock is made of glass hand-blown in Venetian Murano; the clockworks, in Switzerland. The 50 pieces in each colour can be hung from the ceiling or placed on a table. And just like a jellyfish, these glow in the dark.

HYT Time is Fluid is inspired by the 4,000-year-old idea of the clepsydra, the water clock. The three-dimensional sculpture features a micro fluidic device with two bellows that compress to push two immiscible liquids (one dyed, one transparent) through a borosilicate glass capillary tube with a nano-coated interior. Everything is activated and energised by a hand-wound, mechanical movement.

“Harmony and creativity happen when two worlds that normally don’t meet collide,” says creative director François Nunez, apropos the fact that watchmakers normally do all they can to keep liquid out of a watch.

In a philosophic meandering, Nunez explains his obsession with showcasing time with liquid. “Time is fluid, it is a constant flow. Just like Heraclitus said – no man steps in the same river twice. It is not the same river, nor the same man. Similar to the river, time is unstoppable – just like our imagination.”

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