REFILE-Time no longer the essence for luxury watchmakers

birou notarial

(Corrects to add Perramond's full name and title in third paragraph)

* Stopping, slowing time on a watch is the new luxury

* Black carbon fibre, light watches are all the rage

* Classics are back, driven by Chinese demand

By Astrid Wendlandt and Silke Koltrowitz

PARIS, March 25 (Reuters) - Time is up for oversize and flashy luxury watches that actually tell you the hour.

The new status symbol for bankers and Russian oligarchs is a sober, featherlike timepiece made from carbon fibre, magnesium or aluminium, executives at Basel's annual watch fair said

Real luxury is now the ability to stop time. This week Luc Perramond, chief executive of Hermes's watch division, presented the "temps suspendu" (suspended time) model, starting at 18,000 Swiss francs ($19,700), which stops time at the press of a button and brings it back again.

For 240,000 Swiss francs you can pick up an Hublot watch whose time can be slowed or sped up and another which is all black, making it difficult to tell the time at all.

That luxury can set you back upwards of 15,000 Swiss francs.

"The value of a watch is not to give you time," Hublot Chief Executive Jean-Claude Biver told Reuters.

"Any five dollar watch can do that. What we are offering is the ability for example to stop time or make it disappear... Time is a prison and people want to get out of it sometimes."

Those embracing the trend for new materials include Hublot, one of the fastest-growing brands, and its younger rival Richard Mille, whose barrel-shaped watches, starting at 60,000 euros ($85,000), are regarded as some of the most expensive.

"The trend now is light and new materials," Biver said, adding that Hublot last week bought a carbon fibre plant to secure supplies and is investing in new methods of dyeing metals and various materials.

In the world of watch fashion, experts say black dominates, followed by grey and matt colours. And minimalism is the style motto, in contrast to the pre-crisis days of 2007 and 2008 when big, multi-functional sporty watches were in vogue.

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