Sometimes it seems almost mandatory; diamonds on a ladies watch. As if the use of these precious stones marks the difference for which sex a timepiece is created. While they can certainly add something, a watch without diamonds can be just as feminine, as these four watches prove!

Gérald Genta is a man to who many brands owe a great debt. As a designer, he gave Audemars Piguet the Royal Oak, Patek Philippe their Nautilus, and he worked on the Pasha for Cartier, as well as many iconic designs for other brands. What not everybody knows is that he was next to a designer also a watch manufacturer and, in fact, a pioneering one. It was already in 1969 that he founded his manufacture and as could be expected it turned out innovative watches. With the 'Gefica' did Genta introduced a bronze case before it was cool, but that was not all.

Few watches have made such a mark on the industry in recent years as the Bvlgari Octo Finissimo. That it is a design statement is not so surprising, it is after all a Bvlgari, but it is also the watch that cemented the brand's reputation as bonafide manufacture among the general watch-buying public. The fact that Bvlgari did this with a range of ultra-slim movements is very surprising, yet at the same time not so surprising at all. When most brands want to truly establish themselves as a manufacture, they start making complicated watches, not ultra-slim movements that only tell time. However, one of the benefits that ultra-slim movements provide is far more freedom regarding the design of the watch. That is of course when you are able to design and make a reliable, ultra-slim movement in the first place.

Work hard, play hard: this is the mantra many successful women live by. They give it their all every single day and achieved great success no matter their chosen profession. But to accomplish all this, you must sometimes also be able to let it all go, because that not only works energizing but also inspires creativity. These are four watches perfect to do that with!

The history of the minute repeater goes back to a time before electric light. As lighting an oil lamp was quite some work, watchmakers build repeating mechanisms in pocket watches so that they could sound the time on demand. The invention of the minute repeater was claimed by both Edward Barlow and Daniel Quare, but it was Quare who obtained a patent for it in 1687. Initially, watches equipped with a repeating mechanism used bells to chime the time, later to be replaced with wire gong, which took up less space. These weren't minute repeaters, at first, but quarter repeaters, chiming the time to the closest quarter.

Arnold Schwarzenegger and Westime teamed up once again for the sixth annual fundraiser for the actor's charity, After-School All-Stars.

Ultra-thin watches: not too long ago this was the exclusive territory of dress watches. Brands like Vacheron Constantin, Patek Philippe and Piaget, ruled in this domain. Yet as many things in the watch industry change, so also this. In more recent times having the world's thinnest mechanical watch (with or without a complication) seems to have turned into a showdown between Piaget and Bulgari, who put a distinctly different spin on things!

The tourbillon is still the undeniable king of the complications. It is often the one that envokes the most feverish reactions from watch collectors and connoisseurs alike. Part of its magic is its undeniable ability to captivate through its mesmerizing motion and the technical complexity to achieve this. These are some of the most recent watches with a tourbillon that were able to capture, and hold our attention!

Mother's Day is almost there again, which means that florists are getting busy, restaurants are trying to keep up with reservations, yet many children are still contemplating what to give their mother. At Haute Time we are of course very biased and think that a watch would make the perfect gift, like one of these five for example!

After Part I of Haute Time's Favorite Baselworld Watches, there are still a few new watches that we would like to highlight, as they made strong entries to our wishlists, and perhaps those of yours as well.

For a few days a year Basel, normally a modest provincial capital on the Swiss borders with Germany and France, is the capital of the world, the watch world that is. This year is particularly strong in terms of new offerings. The vast majority of the brands exhibiting at Baselworld introduced watches that are very pure in their DNA, while at the same time in tune with what the market currently desires, like these four watches:

Rarely has a name for a watch been as appropriate as for the Bvlgari Diva’s Dream Minute Repeater, as this timepiece can only be categorized for what it name already tells us: a dream. This dream is pretty much a fairy tale as it describes the marriage of a beautiful case, and a stunning dial, with one of the Haute Horlogerie's finest, and thinnest, minute repeater movements in the world: the manufacture caliber BVL 362 which we can also find in the Bvlgari Octo Finissimo Minute Repeater.

Of the 21 watch brands participating in this event, 15 have boutiques in the design district with many of those stores hosting special events and providing a first look in the U.S. of watches they are unveiling this year

When the new year is coming closer people tend to look back at what the current year has brought them. During the course of the year, the tide turned, and many brands enjoyed, once more, increased sales. This was in part due to some incredible new models that were introduced, which worked up an appetite with watch collectors and connoisseurs. At Haute Time we also look back, with our favorite watches of 2017!

It is somewhat of a contradiction: to create a complicated watch, and then make it look as simple and understated as possible. This not only requires technical prowess, but also quite a bit of skill from the designers, as nothing is as difficult as making a complicated watch look simple, yet these four watches do just that!

Animals have always been a great inspiration for watchmakers. Surprisingly, a lot of designs based on an animal become iconic watches. This is most certainly the case of the Serpenti, once the favorite watch of Elizabeth Taylor.