By Hannah Elliott, Forbes Staff
Today marks day two of Richemont’s SIHH trade show, the annual event in Geneva where representatives from the world’s highest-end mechanical and jeweled watch brands meet with journalists and buyers. It’s a glorified trade show, albeit one of the most elite in the world.
And while the significance of the show falls mainly with such technical pieces like Montblanc’s new TimeWalker TwinFly Chronograph GreyTech and Greubel Forsey’s new Double Tourbillon Asymétrique, a large emphasis—vastly more glamorous though not necessarily more profitable—falls to the haute horlogerie pieces shown by the likes of Cartier, Piaget and Van Cleef & Arpels.
Aside from their better-known history of plying jewels to the likes of Elizabeth Taylor, Grace Kelly, Marilyn Monroe, Wallis Simpson and a slew of modern-day Oscar-winners, these diamond houses also have well-established matchmaking traditions that have gone lesser-known behind the glory of so many famous six- and seven-figure rings, necklaces and bracelets in recent years.
What’s more, as luxury buyers reach for goods they consider to be expertly hand-crafted and authentically tied to a “real” heritage, these diamond houses are vying to prove their mettle in the modern timekeeping pantheon by using mechanical movement rather than quartz in their timepieces and by producing that movement completely in-house.
They’re also putting mechanical movement across women’s lines, which are typically the last models in a given portfolio to lose the inferior quartz technology. In short: It is a point of pride for, say, Piaget to be able to say the entire movement and its components are created in-house. Even more so to brag that it’s incorporated into the women’s line and has been for a very long time.
The oldest of the three Richemont jewel names, 167-year-old Cartier, followed its animalistic theme this year as it showed signature Art Deco motifs through the L’Heure Envoûtée de Cartier collection. A Les Indomptables de Cartier brooch watch of crocodile décor had an 18-carat yellow gold, green alligator strap and green enameled dial but the beauty part of the watch was that it changed into a brooch so big and thick that it could really hope to be held up only by a heavy coat or fur. A sister piece—this one a pink flamingo–followed the same watch-as-brooch idea, with similar bold effect and the same dual practicality. Both contain quartz movement and are limited to 50 pieces.
Cartier also showed multiple variations of its iconoclast panther, from three-dimensional cats that seemed to pounce across the watch face to a flat disc painted with a golden panther and spots next to a literal hole through the middle of the piece. The house also debuted a High Jewelry Secret Watch in rhodium-plated 18-carat white gold with a 33.51-carat emerald, brilliant-cut diamonds and quartz movement. Look for it in the slide show above. It is a unique (read: 1 of 1) piece.
Piaget, meanwhile, had big news yesterday about its slimmest-ever watch. But it also showed such dazzling creations as the Altiplano Automatic Skeletons encrusted in brilliant-cut diamonds and sapphire cabochons as well as multiple rose-gold cuff watches filled with hundreds of tiny diamonds.
Van Cleef showed remarkable fortitude with its dozens of new cosmic-related new watches—“Poetic Astronomy” they call it–including entire Midnight Constellation and Zodiac collections encrusted with vibrant enamel engraving and stones like opals, rubies, sapphires and diamonds.
Its piece de resistance was the Midnight Planetarium Poetic Complication that one can set in accordance to the solar system. It will document the tracks of the six planets while a gold shooting star on the face of the watch communicates the hour of the day.
More specifically, the Poetic Complication gives the movements of Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn around the dial of the watch according to their actual rotation around the earth (Jupiter will take 12 years to make it around the watch; Mercury 88 days; Earth 365 days, etc.) while the rotating bezel allows the wearer to select special days under which to align the earth and that special star as a sign of good luck.
“We are a house that believes in luck,” spokeswoman Desire Gallas said. (Indeed–Pierre Arpels famously said that “in order to have luck you have to believe in luck.”
Aside from that one fascinator Van Cleef showed the Midnight Nuit Boreale and Nuit Australe collections (they describe on the dial miniature pictures the Northern and Southern hemispheres as conceived by Greek mythology involving the Golden Fleece, Zeus, Cassiopeia, Great Bear and Callisto, among other characters). Each model went far in showing that these funny watches exist for a reason beyond just telling time—their unique and clever sense of the poetry of time helps convey the idea that time itself is a concept best not taken all too seriously in a world that doesn’t exactly need mechanical watches. (See also: Van Cleef’s new group of rings, earrings and brooches inspired by Thai kites.)
Brands like Ralph Lauren and Bovet aren’t jewel houses but also got in on the act, showing plenty of diamonds to go around in 2014. Lauren showed new enlarged Stirrup Collection watches replete with large white pave diamonds set entirely around the case and fancy new black alligator straps to go along with the bling; Bovet showed its famous Amadeo watch in chocolate- and plum-colored women’s pieces covered in diamonds.
Audemars Piguet showed many Royal Oak watches lined in diamonds—but also showed a stunning 28-mm haute joaillerie piece in 18-carat white gold with brilliant-cut diamonds, sapphire crystal and more than 400 additional diamonds set to look “explosive” off the watch case. (Some said the “explosion” looked vaguely like the shape of the state of Texas.) Unlike some of its competitors, which paired their diamonds with quartz movement, the AP watch housed a very legitimate hand-wound manufacture movement with 48-hour power reserve.
All in all, it made for quite a whimsical day. In fact, many of the experts showing off the stones had come to Geneva almost directly from Los Angeles, where they had assisted movie stars (Orlando Bloom, Margot Robbie) with red-carpet requests.
It was a fitting gig for such glitzy wristwatches. Marilyn would have been proud.
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