When jewellery watches step into masculine territory

All that glitters…

Leman tourbillon grande date © Blancpain

Lady Arpels Centenaire © Van Cleef and Arpels

The list of candidates for the 2006 Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève in the "Lady’s Jewellery Watch" category resembles a veritable Who’s Who of watchmaking. Today, just about every Haute Horlogerie brand proposes a jewellery watch range, from Audemars Piguet to Zenith, from Baume & Mercier to Vacheron Constantin via Blancpain, Breguet, Girard-Perregaux, Hublot, JeanRichard, Patek Philippe, Roger Dubuis and Tag Heurer, not to mention those for whom jewellery has always been at the core of their activity, such as Cartier, Chopard, de Grisogono, Dior, Gucci, Harry Winston, Léon Hatot and Piaget. A list which, while far from exhaustive, eloquently illustrates the vibrant tribute watchmaking pays to women… a tribute which today is no longer limited to simply setting a watch with precious stones.

First there was quartz…

When, in the 1970s, the main watch companies chose quartz movements for their ladies’ models they did so for essentially practical reasons, as it freed women from the daily task of winding their watch. Moreover, this was a decade when mechanical movements had little appeal for aficionada of watches, and particularly jewelled models as quartz movements lent themselves to the most imaginative and extravagant forms. Some twenty years later and "designer" creations by Gucci, Dior and Versace took the jewellery watch sector by storm, proposing entry-level models where the leading brands had become conspicuous by their absence.

The success enjoyed by TechnoMarine - founded by Franck Dubarry in 1997 and recently bought out by two executives with financing from Crédit Agricole and the Belgian holding Copeba - is a good example of jewellery watches’ rapid rise to fame. The brand’s Raft model, which matched diamonds with plastic, sold 50,000 units in the year of its launch in summer 1998. The democratisation of luxury was under way and quartz was crowned king of the jewellery watch sector.

…then mechanical

This was to underestimate the riposte from the established watch brands, even less inclined to have the jewellery rug pulled from under their feet when they had all the assets in hand to rise above the crowd. When a fine jewellery watch takes hundreds, if not thousands, of hours to complete, was there really any sense in using a quartz movement? Especially since the past decade had reinstated the mechanical movement as the quintessence of the watchmaker’s art.

True, brands such as Rolex and Jaeger-LeCoultre had continued to equip their jewellery watches with mechanical movements, but they were the exception rather than the rule. How things have changed… Today, the majority of watchmakers propose mechanical jewellery models, including some grandes complications pieces such as the Starissime Open Love by Zenith, the Leman Tourbillon Large Date by Blancpain, and the Lady Arpels Centenaire. And this combination of traditionally masculine complications with a feminine appreciation of precious stones has struck a chord.

The sky’s the limit

Faced with this infatuation, and the plethora of exceptional models from which to choose, watchmakers now rival in ingenuity to stay one step ahead and assert their expertise in such a specific field. In this sense, the 2007 vintage is exceptional. Hublot opened fire in Basel with its One Million Dollar B.B., a one-off piece covered with diamonds in a mystery setting (a technique developed by Van Cleef & Arpels to secure stones without showing any of the metal underneath), with a flying tourbillon and 120-hour power reserve… the result of 2,000 hours’ work!

A few days later and Piaget, whose Limelight Party carried off last year’s Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève, revealed another stunning creation: the Diamond Emperador Temple, a pyramid of diamonds concealing two movements, one quartz and the other a mechanical Manufacture movement, the 602P, with its magnificent tourbillon. When the watchmaker and the jeweller join forces, there seems to be no limit to what they can achieve… (CR). ■

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