It’s getting haute in here
THE high-luxury watch world’s favourite device is the tourbillon – the word means “whirlwind” in French, and denotes a mechanism which mounts a watch’s escapement (the vibrating part regulating power from the mainspring) in a constantly rotating cage to counteract the effects of gravity on accuracy. Nowadays everyone and his brother puts these hypnotic gizmos into collectors’ watches – it can add £50,000 to the price – which means to impress you have to go quite a few extra miles.
Step forward Jaeger-LeCoultre, which produced one of the stand-out pieces at this year’s Salon Internationale de la Haute Horlogerie (SIHH), the January showcase for top-end watchmaking from select luxury brands. One could write several pages on the technical achievements of its Duometre Spherotourbillon [main picture, right], in which a cylindrical escapement rotates on two different axes on one side of the watch – crudely, it’s highly accurate and its two-barrel system means a lengthy power reserve – but the best thing about it is that it’s a show-off watch that doesn’t overly show off. For a £230,000 watch, it’s as understated and compact as it’s technically dazzling.
Jaeger-LeCoultre was far from the only brand wowing collectors. German brand A. Lange & Sohne makes some of the most beautiful watches on Earth, including this year a new version of its greatly admired Datograph chronograph [right, top]. A sumptuous watch, now with power reserve indicator and an even more balanced design.
Montblanc’s switch from maker of “writing instruments” (how gauche) to one of spectacular watches took a further leap forward with its TimeWriter II [right, centre], a handsome beast with a chronograph (stopwatch) that can split time to 1/1000th of a second.
Audemars Piguet is one of the best known luxury brands, and the Royal Oak is easily its best-known watch. Launched on an unsuspecting market in 1972, it is a classic of modern watch design which survives largely unchanged in AP’s modern collection, though it has given birth to plenty of variations along the way. This year saw a couple of versions with skeletonised dials (the dial cut away to reveal the highly-worked, decorated mechanism beneath) for the collectors, and an ultra-thin version in the classic Royal Oak guise. The watch, with its hexagonal porthole-style bezel, exposed screws and integrated bracelet, is a symbol of the sporting luxury life, and in very fine fettle for its 40th birthday.
Parmigiani is perhaps a lesser-known brand, but one that we’ll be hearing more of now that it’s opening its own boutique in Mayfair this spring. Its first ever annual calendar, the Tonda Annual Calendar [left, bottom], is a dapper piece in which the numbers of the day of the month surround the dial, and a smart moonphase indication sits at 6 o’clock.
As well as producing new Tank watches (see previous page), Cartier continues to impress with its haute horological pieces – the uninitiated may think of Cartier as a jewellery brand, but it is currently striking out in bold fields of research and innovation in the world of highly complicated watches.
Meanwhile IWC, who no one would construe for a jewellery brand, upgraded its famous collection of pilot’s watches. For that story, turn the page.