Welcome in London!
A few familiar faces were already waiting for us at the hotel.
We still had a few morning hours before the official start of the event so we took the time to explore the area around the hotel and Covent Garden. Very quiet before 10am!
But the Oakley store was already open for business :-) Great choice, Sascha!
It is not easy to see on this picture but there was a lot of activity around the Odeon cinema at Leicester Square. Lots of barriers, the entrance area was fenced off, so probably some kind of world premiere in the evening.
Lego Big Ben
Swiss Connection! I think that there was a Watches
Of Switzerland showroom near that place many years ago
but it is apparently long gone...
At Picadilly Circus, the famous billboard lights are turned off since January. It is the first time since World War Two the lights have gone off, except for power cuts and special events. If you look closely at the picture, you can see that the new Skin was unveiled a bit too early. We were told later that the Swatch ad should have gone on display one day later.
After the nice morning walk, we met at noon in a small room in the basement of the One Aldwyich hotel. Charles from Swatch Club was already there and said "Hello" to the ~25 event participants.
Collectors from all over Europe (France, The Netherlands, UK, Germany, Spain, ...) were invited and German even flew in for the event from New York City.
After a small lunch, we took the bus to the Tate Modern Gallery.
the (almost complete) group
In the entrance area, we saw a huge installation by Philippe Parreno called Anywhen. Huge but really fascinating due to the play with movement and light.
Afterwards, we visited The Radical Eye: Elton John’s modernist photography collection with a huge number of photos (about 150) from the 1920s–50s. Elton John owns several thousand photos from the "golden age" of photography" so he also has the "collecting fever" (and a special large home for his collection!). Very special, very interesting with the introductory video featuring Elton John talking about his collection. Definitely worth a visit (but no photography allowed).
Coffee time near River Thames at King's
College. Superb coffee by Paddy
& Scott's!
We met at around 5.30 pm and walked over about 10 minutes to the Japanese Roka Aldwych restaurant. Great food, even for people suffering from a fish allergy....
Yummy!
About 20 minutes before the official start of the Skin #YOURMOVE event, we walked over to the event location at 180 The Strand (home of eg. The London Fashion Week). The official start of the event was at 7.30pm) and it was broadcasted live on the social media (Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, ...). You could easily see that Swatch had invested a lot of time and money to turn the location into a unique showcase location for the new Skin watches.
The ~350 journalists, VIPs, bloggers, ... were already in their place. We had a nice spot at the side, very close to the stage.
At 7.30pm sharp, Swatch Creative Director Carlo Giordanetti entered the stage and held a short but funny introductory speech.
Afterwards, several ballet dancers entered the stage, one by one. A great computer projection was in the back, following the movement of the dancers. Spectacular! This dance part lasted for about 10-15 minutes and underpinned the theme of the night (#YOURMOVE) very nicely!
It ended with a big bang and a lot of confetti. The (new) Swatch Skin was unveiled!
The curtains were opened and it was time to explore the back part of the building with huge Skin displays and several showcases with the actual Skin watches.
I prefer the watch in the middle!
Some funny drawings were made and the Swatch camera team was livestreaming the whole evening.
At around 9-10pm, most of the journalists and VIPs were already gone. Time to explore the dance floor (with the computer projection).
Dennis great moves ended up in the official Swatch
event video!
A last group picture before going back to the hotel and preparing for a 04:15am wakeup call in order to leave for the next Swatch event in another European country:
The launch of the new Club watch in Milano!
swatch.stawi.de
also has a great report about the London Skin #YOURMOVE event.
Thank you to Swatch for the generous invitation and to Charles and the
rest of the Swatch Club for taking care of us during our short stay in
London. Here is the official event video featuring Denis and Yannick:
Back to Stay tuned to Swatch.