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Vacheron Constantin photo

The Vacheron Constantin Historique 1955

Luxury watch trends

Thin is in for men's watches

Thin is in this year, when it comes to movements, as luxury watch brands pay tribute to their heritage and to simpler times - primarily the '50s and '60s. At the 2010 Salon International de a Haute Horlogerie, Piaget introduced an automatic calibre version of its famously slim (2.30mm) 12P hand wound movement. The automatic 1200P is 2.35mm thick, making it the world's thinnest automatic movement. It is cased in the Altiplano collection.

Also notable is Vacheron Constantin's Historique 1955, originally introduced in 1955, which measures in as the thinnest manual-winding watch in the world, with a movement only 1.64mm thick.

Baume & Mercier launched an ultra-thin watch in its Classima Executives series, at 4.4mm thick, containing a quartz movement.

Ralph Lauren, the new watch collection co-owned by the Richemont Group and launched last year, includes the notably thin Slim Classique line with a 2.1mm mechanical movement made by sister brand Piaget.

BaselWorld, the huge Swiss watch fair taking place this week (March 18-25) in Basel, Switzerland, is also expected to be the launch site of several new slim versions from top brands.

The new Zenith Elite 681 Ultra Thin, for example, is a perfect example of the new classic. It contains the extra-slim Elite 681 automatic calibre, measuring at just 3.81mm. The Atlantic Worldmaster 1888, with a 4.6mm ETA automatic movement, is also quite streamlined, and pays tribute to the brand's innovations in watchmaking since that date.