It's Comeback Time For Luxury Watches - NYTimes.com

But Raymond Weil, dissimilar status mark, is still struggling, he said. ''They didn't come up with any new styles, and what they had they didn't ship well; they weren't at the top of their game.''

Rolex, constantly called the Rolls-Royce of watches, has not made its reputation on new models -- its orthodox ones often have waiting lists. But a few months ago, even Rolex introduced a new limited edition, with a ring of green instead of black nigh the bezel. Cartier also came out with a new watch for the holidays: the $3,450 Roadster for women.

At Saks Fifth Avenue, $1,000 watches by Michele sold out -- and did well throughout the country; buyers were preoccupied to the diamonds that circle the watch, the brightly colored starfish rind and alligator bands, and, of lesson, the low price -- relative to the Cartier and Tiffany diamond-encrusted watches, that is.

''Jewelry, especially fantasy, high-priced watches,Picking The Best Mobile Phone Cover, rose 35 percent over last Christmas,'' said C. Britt Beemer, leader of America's Research Group, which polls both shoppers and retailers. ''For corporate executives, C.E.O.'s and Wall Streeters, the watch is now as much a status symbol as the car they steer. It was the huge gift they gave themselves this Christmas.''

The country's guiding watch dealers said in interviews that users will want more watches with diamonds on the outdoor as well as more technically progressive sports watches like the Tiger Woods Link Calibre 36 by Tag Heuer, which sells for a cool $5,000 (and is occasionally sold out), and the Emergency watch by Breitling, complete with a beacon to summon rescuers. Buyers have to sign a waiver absolving the manufacturer of responsibility if the beacon is set off deliberately and the Coast Guard responds en masse.

Companies like Tag Heuer and Harry Winston are expanding both up and down the proceeds scale. Tag Heuer is going with Mr. Woods to develop a new golfing watch (90 percent of golfers do not wear watches, Tag Heuer says) and has reintroduced the Monaco, the watch worn by Steve McQueen when he raced automobiles at Le Mans, which retails for for much as $12,000. Ten days before Christmas, it also introduced a line of fewer valuable watches called Formula One, with ruddy, blue and dark dials, for $600 to $800.

The watch manufacture is gearing up apt give clients what they want.

Luxury watches are back, principally if they are encrusted with diamonds or endorsed by celebrities, living or die. This vacation season, some of the richest Americans portioned with more than $10,000 for a timepiece, joined along abundance of the merely slightly more downtrodden, for whom a $1,000 watch was suddenly the award to give.

While the elegance watch affair -- from jeweled timepieces by Tiffany and Harry Winston to sports models by Tag Heuer and Breitling -- was buffet hard later the Sept. 11 aggressions, pollsters, retailers and watchmakers say this was the Christmas namely brought the return of the customer who wants more than fair someone to narrate the time.

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Louis Fortunoff, one administrative vice president at Fortunoff, said the fourth quarter was ''driven by men's sports watches: Breitling, Tag Heuer and Omega.'' On the ladies' side, Mr. Fortunoff said, Baume & Mercier and Movado were the victors.

''We had a quite strong holiday,'' said Andrew J. Block, senior vice president for sale at Tourneau, an of the country's biggest watch dealers. ''I can't give you the mathematics, yet the increase was well upon what the analysts were projecting: 3 to 5 percent. With some brands, the mushroom over last year was in the twice digits.''

Harry Winston now sells what a spokeswoman phoned ''classic, daily watches'' as $6,000 to $11,000. But Winston has no deserted its billionaires: it ambition introduce the Opus IV by the Basel Watch Fair in April. The cost? Around $200,000. Not to be surpassed, Louis Vuitton, which began making watches a annual antecedent, is introducing the Tourbillon aboard Feb. 10, because roughly the same cost.

Watch retailers are definitely in agreeable spirits these days.

People are also requesting more ''entry level'' watches, which, dealers mention, scamper from $295 to $600. And the more complications -- industry code for detail features like the emergency beacon -- the better.