For this special spring fair issued, I have chosen not to deal with a specific new launch, but instead to take readers on a guided tour of some technical departments and workshops brimming with highly qualified manpower. A place where future trends take shape and a prolific source of smart innovations. Smart because BNB employs the crème de la crème of specialists in each of its fields of activity and in each workshop. The profession of the BNB “team” is to imagine, invent, develop and make movements for the watch industry. The term of engine manufacturer, which is how they like to refer to themselves, perfectly sums up this extraordinary hotbed of specialists.

The first stage in this guided tour is the R&D office. The advanced stage of the developments I am seeing on the computer screens of the movement design-engineers naturally precludes any evocation of them here. But I can assure you that there is plenty of material to supply this column with some incredibly innovative topics for many issues to come. Since I cannot conceal my curiosity, I am promised a few special treats… for dessert.

Then comes the visit to the micromechanical engineering, decoration, polishing, electroplating, quality control and assembly workshops. In the latter, I am able to witness the hundreds of miniature technical feats represented by each of the components in a movement being fitted smoothly together and springing to life.

The show can now begin. Among the wonders I am shown, I recognise the models that won the Geneva Watchmaking Grand Prix award for Innovation, as well as that of Dubai. As the presentation trays come and go, I discover a stunning range of chronograph mechanisms and an incredible variety of architectural approaches to the tourbillon, each of them built according to unprecedented and downright revolutionary concepts.

I am then shown a series of movements in which the plates and bridges are made in such “exotic” materials as magnesium or carbon fibre. The latter is probably one of the major trends we will be seeing at the spring fairs. Successfully mastering the use of carbon for such an application is still an almost paranormal achievement, and yet the balances are steadily beating off the time. Working with carbon fibre calls for new technologies specially developed to meet watchmaking demands. The entire conception needed to be entirely rethought, including how the jewels would be driven in, how the material would be shaped and machined. The result is that carbon fibre brings with it the same benefits that it displays in more customary applications. Lightness, rigidity, an excellent coefficient of dilatation, resistance to corrosion… Coloured in various shades, the fibre has a delightful shimmering appearance. I revel in admiring these fabulous “Formula 1” type watch mechanisms and find myself thinking that “Côtes de Genève” might soon find themselves being relegated to the ranks of old-timer decorations.

I can scarcely comprehend such a vast range of new concepts, fully aware that the watchmaking future is spread out beneath my magnifying glass. And then suddenly I catch sight of a hand-wound base movement with an 8- day power reserve, in which the stop seconds function stops the movement before the amplitude declines. I almost forget that it is also equipped with a cock enabling adjustment of the endshake by means of micrometrical screws. The gentle chimes of a minute repeater stir me from my reverie and remind me that it is unfortunately time to leave.

On my way home, as I try in vain to reconstruct the list of the innovations I have discovered, strangely enough what mostly occupies my thoughts is the atmosphere pervading BNB. An atmosphere imbued with a blend of passionate interest and genuine humility, where there is no perceptible hierarchical structure and where everybody seems to wear a smile. Now I know why…