Bertolucci Stria Woman's Barnacle Shaped Watch

by Ariel Adams (RSS feed)
Dec 13th 2008 at 12:02PM

Use of natural shapes and themes often fares well for jewelry and watch designers. Though sometimes you get tired of seeing the same flower, star, leaf, or other cliche symbols from nature transformed into luxury goods. Swiss fine watch maker Bertolucci received inspiration from ocean shore tide pools in the design of the new woman's Stria line of watches.

No luxury woman's watch is seemingly complete without a healthy portion of diamonds. Stria watches will be available with 162 or 274 count diamond studded cases and dials. Diamond free versions are also available on the rose gold or steel cases sized at a large-for-ladies 37.5mm wide case. In going with the barnacle shell theme, the dial itself is off-centered, and the sapphire crystal is domed to enhance the pyramid effect of the case shape. Guilloche engraving on the case body is meant to suggest the complex patterns seen on shell surfaces. Perhaps not a perfect emulation of natural patterns, but a nice effect.

Dials come in either black with (seriously) a "snail decor" index pattern, or in mother of pearl with a sunburst pattern engraved into the surface. The snail decor is presumably meant to mimic (with diamonds), the glistening trail of mucus left by a snail. Strap is either black or white satin. Bertolucci is really taking the mollusk theme to elegant extremes.

Ariel Adams publishes the watch review site aBlogtoRead.com.

Tags: Bertolucci, sea shell watch, SeaShellWatch, timepieces, watch, watches