The art and jewellery designs redefining timepieces: from a shape-shifting Cartier and Chanel’s couture ensemble, to Van Cleef & Arpels’ enamel fantasy and Louis Vuitton’s tribute to Japanese art
When telling time alone isn’t enough, these spectacular timepieces from luxury watchmakers are pushing the art of horology to the realms of the spectacular
Intricate complications and futuristic materials are all very well, but sometimes we just want watchmakers to dazzle us with their skills. This year, stand-out pieces from several leading luxury watch maisons have gone well beyond telling the time to also telling stories through their spectacular designs.
Van Cleef & Arpels, for example, pushed the art of enamelling into entirely new territory with the Lady Arpels Jour Enchanté, part of its Extraordinary Dials collection. Its dial, which took two years of development, shows a fairy under a bright sun collecting flowers, which are depicted using yellow sapphires that stand out in relief as a result of an entirely new technique developed by the brand, known as façonné enamel.
There’s a similarly dazzling display of intricate dial design in the three new watches from the Louis Vuitton Escale Cabinet of Wonders collection. A tribute to Japanese aesthetics, they bring to life a collection of auspicious creatures – two koi, a snake and a dragon – in dramatic, three-dimensional style, deploying precision enamelling techniques including champlevé and paillonné.
Vacheron Constantin has been busy reinventing both the form and the materials of its watches this year. Its one-off Pleats of Time reimagines the watch dial as a rippling pattern of silk threads, while its strap even contains nanocapsules of a bespoke fragrance. The Grand Lady Kalla, meanwhile, transforms the watch into an entirely different piece of jewellery: a spectacular sautoir necklace made from onyx beads and Akoya pearls.
Jaeger-LeCoultre also returned to sautoir watches in the latter half of the year, taking the Reverso Secret Necklace silhouette and outfitting the geometric reverse side with diamonds, turquoise, onyx and rhodochrosite. Comprising more than 2,899 diamonds, the necklace requires over 300 hours to complete. Powered by the manual wound calibre 946, this watch blends excellence in both watchmaking and jewellery.
