Many of the jewellery houses reached into their archives to tap into the glamour-seeking mood for today.

Vacheron Constantin reimagined its 1979 Kallista watch, then the world’s most expensive timepiece, with the new Grand Lady Kalla. Set with dazzling baguette-cut diamonds, it can be worn as a necklace watch, bracelet or a pearl and onyx Deco-style necklace.

Sandrine Donguy, product marketing and innovation director at Vacheron Constantin, says the watch builds on the brand’s legacy in both women and secret watches, especially from eras when “it wasn’t polite for a lady to look at the time”.

Donguy believes the jewellery watch is resonating with clients for several reasons: “These are trends which are much appreciated by clients. It’s a different way of wearing things … there’s a passion for high watchmaking also among women. But that doesn’t mean we should stay limited to the watch on the wrist.”

The idea of haute horology away from the wrist was evident at Chanel too, with Arnaud Chastaingt, director of the Chanel Watchmaking Creation Studio, growing more playful with his designs. Once again taking inspiration from the couture ateliers at the house of Chanel, Chastaingt created a series of sautoir necklaces with a secret watch in the shapes of a thimble, safety pin and dressmaker’s mannequin. A Premiere watch meanwhile, was fashioned as both a necklace or a belt, which felt so very Chanel.

Glamour is indeed in high supply this year, and nobody does a more compelling, more languid, yacht-in-Capri ready version of it than Piaget.

Celebrating its 150th anniversary this year, the Swiss jeweller is leaning into its savoir faire in jewellery watches and nodding to its golden era in the 1960s and 1970s when it was the byword in jet-set glamour.

This year, a highlight was the Swinging Sautoir necklace watch with a rounded dial set in a twisted and knotted yellow gold chain. It would pair awfully well with a martini and a dance floor – especially on the kind of night when time is suspended or feels never-ending

Jean-Bernard Forot, Piaget head of patrimony, says there are several reasons the Swiss maison’s designs are resonating. The 1970s, he points out, were a time of freedom for women and Piaget jewellery designers were particularly tapped into the vibe.

He says Piaget’s style was not just about abstract creations, but also what would fit women comfortably. “Piaget was able to produce every kind of design because we had all of the savoir faire movements, components, gold crafting, chain making, engraving and sculpting,” he added.

“We are still melting gold today … there were rich palettes and this was mastered in-house. So I think it helped the maison to have the freedom to do what was drawn.”

Sometimes, notes Forot, the mood was people wanting to be noticed.

It’s something that Marie-Laure Cérède, director of watchmaking design at Cartier, captures in her new jewellery watches this year.

Reflection de Cartier is, as Cérède notes, like a veritable sculpture for the wrist, straddling a line between timepiece and jewellery in its bold geometry and volume.

Meanwhile the Cartier menagerie is fully realised with bejewelled timepieces that bring the elegant, ferocious emblem of the maison – the Panthere – to life, along with tigers and crocodiles.

Perhaps the idea of time as mere fantasy rather than practicality was most beautifully expressed at Van Cleef & Arpels. This year it focused its incredible technical prowess into creating pieces such as the Lady Arpels Brise d’Été watch, which with a push of a button, sends butterflies flitting across the dial, and the Lady Jour Nuit, featuring a 24-hour rotating disc which allows the aventurine dial to shift from showing a fluted yellow-gold sun to diamond-set moon and stars.

Moments of enchantment? That feels like something worth tracking.