Ulysse Nardin are sponsoring the America’s Cup team Artemis, and this watch Classico America celebrates the sponsorship agreement, along with the history of the race itself. It depicts the schooner America, which won a regatta around the Isle of Wight organized annually by the Royal Yacht Squadron. America had been built by John Cox Stevens,…
The Chamber of Wonders series began in 2015, with intricately-painted dials. Three new pieces have been introduced for 2016, all limited editions of 18 pieces. They are based on the Girard-Perregaux 1966 pink gold watch, with in-house self-winding GP03300-0060 movement. This runs at 28,800 vibrations per hour, 4 Hertz, has 205 components: 26 jewels, and a power reserve of…
Lots of pocket watches this year. Perhaps Hermès know something that other people don’t about this sector of the market? Are lots of people going to be going around with fobs and chains? Are waistcoats also going to be coming back? In actual fact theSlim d’Hermès Pocket Panthère isn’t going to change the situation all…
Robert Dallet (1923-painted big cats and made many scarf designs for Hermès in the 19980s. In January this year, Hermès was involved in the foundation of the Robert Dallet Initiative for Wild Cat Conservation, which operates with Panthera to help protect these endangered species. Dallet first saw a tiger in a Paris zoo, and this…
These four watches are new models of pieces already launched in November 2014. Vacheron Constantin are presenting them as a preview to the watch fair SIHH that begins on 18 January 2016. The watches are 37 mm in diameter and set with 194 diamonds, and each has a different style of decoration. In my view…
There have been all sorts of strange and unusual materials used in watchmaking, and Jaquet Droz have discovered yet another: eggshell. The elephant depicted on the dial is created using tiny pieces of quails’ eggs, in their natural colours ranging from light beige to brown-grey. The technique originates from Vietnam, and the motif, an elephant…
Three koi carp are swimming in a pool amidst lotus flowers and rushes, and the fish are depicted using layers of translucent blue enamel creating an effect of depth, almost an optical illusion. While the fish and their shadows are shown realistically in this Jaquet Droz piece, the other elements on the dial are stylized,…
This piece by Blancpain is a complication watch, not for the hand-wound calibre 15B movement that provides just hours and minutes, but for the subject matter on the dial. The more you look at the image the more you find. The Hindu god Ganesh has a trunk winding artfully around the central pivot, and is…