Jewelry timepieces usually blind with sparkling gems on glittering surfaces.
But some brands now give priority to traditional collaborations – so their jewelry watches not only show extravagant stones, but also the craftsmanship behind the creations. The merger of various skills and materials has the manufacture of complicated jewelry hours that combine different Métiers d’Arts, fields where precision and artistry arat weight.
“The trend to integrate artistic crafts into the design of jewelry watches started more than ten years ago,” said Corentin Quidau, an independent consultant and the strategist of the global jewelers in Paris. “In Watchmaking, brand expertise and prestige have shifted from being aimed at complex technological complications to a more artistic orientation. Brands such as LVMH, Hermès and Chanel, to name just a few, take care of it or buy deployment in specialized studios, who brings their knowledge into the fold of the brand. “
As a result, he continued: “Creativity and ingenuity are where top brands compete” for the importance of the increasing number of rich potential buyers.
“Nowadays, with developments in crafts in combination with new technologies, it is possible to reach the most eccentric of ‘creative follies’ in jewelry watch from every perspective – formal, functional, equipment or stylistic,” said Mr Quidau, “that’s that Why we see brands aimed at creating really exceptional pieces ”
The trend has been clear in the workshops of La Fabrique du Temps, the specialist watchmaking center of Louis Vuitton in Geneva, where a team of skilled Métiers d’Alt Artisans is dedicated to making complicated manufactures in -house.
“Since 2023 we have introduced all the expertise we needed to make really exceptional timepieces,” said Michel Navas, a master watchmaker and co-founder of La Fabrique du Temps. “We have more than 200 people in the workshop.”
A recent addition was Dick Steenman and his team, all renowned specialists in miniature sculpture and engraving. Based on their skills, La Fabrique du Temps have made a complicated miniature of a 19th-century horse-and-pulled delivery carriage, sculpted from a single gold block, for the dial of Louis Vuitton’s escale à Asnières pocket watch. (Mr. Steenman has also engraved a low-relief image of the same horse and carriage on the caseback.)
Named after the historical workshops for making the brand in Asnières, outside of Paris, the unique 18-carat pink gold pocket watch has a cupboard with 50 millimeters with diamonds that weigh more than four carat.
The dial was painted by Anita Porchet, a master enamel, and made of layers of colored email reached by 20 shooting, then garnished with a low translucent enamel fondant for shine.
The watch is powered by the LFT AU14.01, a manual wound caliber developed by La Fabrique with 480 components, including a Jacquemart mechanism with seven animations, and a minute of repeater that sounds time with a cathedral gong.
With the push of a sliding controller, the scene of the watch, inspired by a Louis Vuitton advertisement from 1887, begins to live: the miniature horse and the carriage, sculpted in low relief, begin to move on the dial. The legs of the horse step to the left and right, turn the wheels and the driver lifts an arm with blue sleeves to hit the horse. Piles of Louis Vuitton trunks pop open on the carriage bed and reveal a jewelry monogram flower.
“The dial is a phase of a complex backstage mechanism, a bit like a Marionette show,” said Mr Navas. “It is brought to life through the collaboration of many craftsmen, from technical watchmakers to precious stones, goldsmiths and enamel.”
“We wanted this watch to have a theatrical essence,” he said. “The value is in the spectacle it creates, far beyond gold and the diamonds.” (The price of the watch, which has been sold to a customer, has not been announced.)
Bees and butterflies
On the dial of Dior’s Grand Soir Automatic Miss Dior, a spectacle of swirling bees and fluttering butterflies unfolds around a smooth dior dress that is printed on a Pearl-guide plate.
The house recently made two one-off of the watch during its workshops in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland: one in white gold and the other in rosé gold, and each set with a total of almost 16 carat diamonds and yellow and pink sapphire. The house said the timepieces were considered a tribute to the couture creations of the founder, and they must be unveiled this week during the high jewelry presentation of Dior, during the Paris Couture Week.
Each of the jewelry watches has a 38 millimeter case with a gemstone set Bezel and more than 300 elements that are applied to the dial, including miniature gems, hand-engraved gold flowers and precious bees and butterflies. Some of them are part of a lively animation of 90 seconds that is activated by a pusher on the crown. (Prices on request.)
Chanel’s design studio strived for realism when it created the Medallion Lion Long Necklace, according to an e -mail from Arnaud Chastaingt, the director of the Huis’s Watch Creation Studio on Paris’s Place Vendôme.
With the help of the Lost Wax technique, the model of a sculptor of the head of the Lion and Manes was made in yellow gold of 18 carats. One side of the 55 millimeter medallion has the Leeuwkop, while the reverse displayed the gemet-set mane and an onyx watch-guide plate. A push mechanism at 6 am can be used to adjust the time.
The medallion, which hangs on a twisted yellow gold chain with diamonds, Onyx Beads and Onyx tubes, was made in an edition of 10 (priced at € 460,000 or $ 471.060, each). Each has a total of 15.48 carat diamonds.
From design to implementation, the piece lasted two years and 450 hours of work of 10 craftsmen. “The challenges were in creating a realistic and expressive lion, in gemstone in the moons where the diamonds are put in gold on cast rails, and when mounting the parts as a seamless piece, without a single visible screw,” wrote Mr. Chastaingt, wrote.
“Our goal was to achieve the best craftsmanship and to use exceptional materials to serve the design.”
The artisans of Van Cleef & Arpels have long shown their skills in decorative objects. A recent example is Onde Mystéius, a box with precious stones input with a desk clock, presented in November as part of the latest high jewelry collection of the house, Treasure Island, named after the novel by Robert Louis Stevenson.
The one -off piece, the house said, required 2,750 hours of work and concerned 13 different crafts. (It has been sold; the price was not announced.)
The lid is decorated with fish, sculpted in rose and white gold, which seem to swim in a sea of Paillonné glaze, a technique in which a thin top of metal between two layers of transparent enamel is placed to achieve a particularly brilliant translation .
Two removable jewelry clips spirals, in the form of sea shells-releases the diamond-pavé-guide plate embedded in the lid. The clock has a Swiss quartz movement with a battery life of eight years and a pusher on the back of the box can be used to set the time.
Van Cleef said it worked with Atelier Sanson, a celebrated specialist in Normandy, France, to make the two interior compartments made of ebony and fed in goat.
“Gem -Setters, Watchmakers, Email Craftsmen, Lapidaries and others all worked together to make this precious piece,” wrote Catherine Rénier, Chief Executive of the house, in an e -mail. “It shows the ability of the Maison to bring different crafts together to create exceptional objects.”
Play with shapes
Experimental forms can make the task of making jewelry watches even more complex, a challenge that Cartier stood for when it added an architectural turn to a technically innovative jewelry piece in the reflection De Cartier Watch, a noble -like Bangle that appeared in stores in September.
The Open Bangle has what the house called a “face to face” design and introduces a variation of time display: the white dial on the surface of one end of the Bangle works against the clock, so the reflection on the mirror polished Surface at the other end of the bracelet actually shows the right time.
The watch has five variations: yellow, rose and white gold, gemet set or just, including a completely white diamond model. (Prices on request.)
“This piece required more than 3000 hours of development,” wrote Marie-Laure Cérède, Cartier’s Watch and Creative Director of the Jewelry, in an e-mail. “It is a technical performance, but also a wonderful tribute to the Cartier codes, with his reverse setting and its face-to-face bracelet design. It has a double identity: it is Narcissus who looks at his own image in the water, or a simple bracelet to wear stacked with other bracelets. “
Chopard also played with forms with his latest Ice Cube Secret Watch, presented in November ($ 452,000). Each required 800 hours of work to facet and polishes 102 18-carat rose gold cubes of different volumes and heights, and then used them with 36 princess-cut diamonds, a total of 8.54 carat.
“The 102 cubes fit perfectly together while staying flexible and comfortable to wear,” wrote Caroline Scheufele, the co-president and artistic director of Chopard, in an e-mail. “There are 1,300 facets, polished three times each. Imagine the patience to do that. ‘
“The way the cubes are compiled and the hidden dial, it’s all about design and craftsmanship,” wrote Mrs. Scheufele. “The diamonds are of course amazing, but this watch is really about artistry.”
