stuart mooremarch 2012 update

For more than 40 years Stuart has made the annual pilgrimage to the Basel Fair. While more and more focused on watches (hey, it is in Switzerland) Basel is still a “must” for anyone serious in our industry. This year Stuart’s main mission was to find a particularly funky diamond, cut over a hundred years ago, for a top client. That gave him the excuse to do what he always does; eat & drink with old friends in Basel’s wonderful old town (circa 1300) and visit two of his favourite museums, the Beyeler Foundation and the Vitra for a few hours of quiet contemplation.

His overall impression is a touch sad. He says, “The fair is fast going the way of so many consumer products, away from craftsmanship and design into fluff-branding and bling. This is not just aesthetically distressing but the consumer gets little value as the profit margins on this trendy stuff are enormous (how else could the producers afford the crazy marketing). Perhaps, by acting together with a core group of old school design-craft fanatics we can be instrumental in persuading the fair to re-install a Designer Section (as existed until 1990).