To celebrate the 150th anniversary of the House of Boucheron jewelers, the company has commissioned a variety of special commemorators of the occasion. To start with, they have opened a new store on the rue du Rhone in Paris to showcase the firm's famous designs.
The company has also created unique objects in collaboration with international brand names such as Vertu, jewelry designer Harumi Klossowska, la Maison du chocolat and Richard Mille. From Mille comes the Hommage à Boucheron RM 018 timepiece, in which the gear-train of the movement is manufactured from precious and semi-precious stones. The tourbillon watch has a case and movement produced by Richard Mille and features the precious and semi-precious stones selected and elaborated by Boucheron. The 18K white gold watch is limited to 30 pieces and each piece will have a different combination of stones.
The first watch from new brand Maitres du Temps is the Chapter One and it's practically a book unto itself. The new brand was founded by Steven Holtzman the ex-distributor of Roger Dubuis in North America and will showcase designs from Christophe Claret, Roger Dubuis and Peter Speake-Marin.
Their first model is the Chapter One which is thickly stuffed with complications including a tourbillon, mono-pusher chronograph, retrograde date, retrograde GMT, and two rolling bars at 6 o'clock and 12 o'clock, indicating the day of the week and phase of the moon. A small window between the day roller and tourbillon allows a peek at the gyrating tourbillon cage. The watch is done in an 18K red gold case and has some pretty hefty dimension, 62.60 mm x 45.90 mm
It may seem like a silly idea but it's really just a reflection of the times -- watches are less and less about actually telling the time (we all have cell phones and PDAs for that now) and more about style and luxury. The Day&Night watch sells for $300,000 and the first lot sold out in just 48 hours. Apparently there are a lot of people looking to know whether it's day or whether it's night -- from their watch.
In the market for a waterproof watch? You may have trouble finding one, considering few watches (if any) are truly and completely waterproof, and are in reality only water resistant. Water resistance is a term that can mean anything from "withstands minor splashing" to "submersible up to 100 meters," to any number of other definitions. So before you take your $5000 "water-resistant" watch into the swimming pool you may want to check on some details. Maybe it can go cannon balling with you or maybe it should stay sitting safely by your beach towel and flip flops -- either way it's something worth knowing.
The latest product to tie in to the Beijing Olympics coming up this august is the Voila Beijing Dream. The elaborated cage like design of the watch mimics the National Stadium (also called the Birds Nest) that will hold the opening and closing ceremonies for the 2008 Olympics. The watch is available with a stainless steel or gold plated case with a strap of Chinese silk brocade. It comes set with .23 carats of diamonds or .72 carats and prices range from 1,490 to 2,190 euros.
The Seiko watch company has a compelling story behind their latest watch the Seiko Spring Drive Spacewalk launched at Baselworld. The watch has been engineered to withstand the extreme environment of outer space and will be worn on the wrist of Richard Garriott, the sixth private-citizen space explorer, when he takes his trip this fall. Garriott, a video game designer and the son of a NASA astronaut, will pay $45 million for his trip and plant to viisit the International Space Station and become the first private citizen to do a space walk outside of it. He will be wearing the Seiko Spring Drive Spacewalk outside of his spacesuit and so the watch has to be able to survive zero gravity and an environment where temperatures can get as low as negative 22 degrees Celsius. Battery-powered watches aren't viable for space and the spring drive was chosen over a mechanical watch for safety and accuracy. The watch was designed to be light and recesses on the sides of the case save weight. It also has a dial with a Lumibrite treatment for readability. The case is air tight and made of high-intensity titanium. The watch is a limited edition of 100, three will go with Garriott on his October adventure and the other 97 will be available in December and will retail for $25,000.
Watchmaker Ulysse Nardin has introduced their new watch for Baselworld. The Sonata Silicium Limited Edition watch is a limited edition of 300 pieces (in an 18K white or rose gold case). Nardin is now using silicium in all its new models. The movement is the automatic UN caliber 67 with a power reserve of approximately 42 hours. The functions include hours, minutes, seconds, large date, dual time system with instant time zone adjuster, countdown, cathedral gong alarm. The case is 42mm and it has front and back sapphire crystals with an alligator strap. It's handsome enough and I'm sure the alarm sound is beautiful but I find the yellow hands a bit jarring on such an elegant watch.
Taking a note from the super-thin Appella watches, Chopard will be introducing the ultra-thin L.U.C XP at the Baselworld watch show. This watch uses the automatic Chopard in-house caliber L.U.C. 96HM with 29 jewels and a 70 hour power reserve. The caliber is just 3.3mm thick. The case measures 39.5mm X 6.8mm. This simply styled watch is available in rose or white gold with a slate gray dial. Very elegant.
The latest watch in Piaget's Polo Tourbillon Relatif series will delight fans of the city of Paris. The new watch, which will be shown at the upcoming SIHH 2008 watch and jewelry show has a mechanical hand-wound one minute flying tourbillon and uses the Manufacture Piaget caliber 608P movement. The dial features names of famous Parisians. The coolness factor here though is on the sides of the watch. The sides of the watch are decorated with amazingly intricate etchings of the city. The design shows monuments such as the Arc de Triomphe, Eiffel Tower, the Louvre and others. No details on price or production are available yet.
A Dutch jeweler Paul Pertijss, and a watch engraver Kees Engelbarts have created a new high-end watch brand based in Geneva, Switzerland. Cornelius & Cie will produce exclusive watches, using vintage watch movements in proprietary cases. Each movement is embellished by hand, skeletonised and/or engraved by Kees Engelbarts and personalized engravings are available. The first collection will be 12 Chronosome 46XY watches. This model uses a 1935 A. Schild movement with eccentrically placed barrel. There will be three models: one with a completely skeletonized movement and dial (two pieces in platinum, two pieces in red gold) one with a partly skeletonized movement and closed dial (four pieces in red gold) and one with Côtes de Genève decoration (four pieces in red gold). Each watch will be sold with an Orbita watch winder and an extra barrel which can be engraved with a personal text or picture. The watches will be available in April and prices start at 39,500 euros up to 115,000 euros for the fully skeletonized version.
There are some who say you shouldn't mess with a classic, the limited edition Movado Museum Watch which will be shown at Baselworld this year blows that theory out of the water. The classic watch has a 45mm 18K rose gold case with a sapphire crystal caseback window showing the ETA-Unitas manual winding movement which is engraved with a "Movado Factories" inscription. The hot stuff happens on the front, a small red-framed dial cutout with an M-shaped bridge that bears the sub seconds hand. It looks like a superhero symbol and I wish I could give it to everyone whose name starts with the letter M. There will be 25 pieces manufactured.
You might know Diane Kruger best from her role as Nicolas Cage's love interest in the National Treasure movies, now Kruger has scored a little treasure of her own, signing on as the ambassador of Jaeger-LeCoultre watches. The beautiful German actress is the new female face of Jaeger- LeCoultre and will wear its watches in her daily life and on the red carpet. She has already been spotted wearing a couple of the brand's watches at various events such as the Berlin Film Festival.
Watchmaker Franc Vila has announced a limited edition that is truly limited. At Baselworld 2008, Franc Vila will unveil the FVa Nº 6 Tourbillon Planétaire Skeleton SuperLigero Concept. The watch's movement has been built for the first time ever in an Aluminium-Lithium based alloy christened ''lightnium''. The new material is an extremely low density metal that is light and has high tensile strength, By using an extremely low density material and reducing the movement to its minimum expression, it is made into a skeleton and the lightness of this new material means that the movement is less affected by inertial forces making it one sporty skeleton tourbillon. There will be just eight of these made.
We don't know too much about this watch except that is will be introduced during the SIHH show in Switzerland in April. The Cartier Perles watch is part of the Cartier Libre watch collection which also includes Cartier's Crash watches. The Cartier Perle is done in 18K white gold with 389 diamonds (a total of 2.9 carats) and highlighted by two pearls. The movement is a Swiss quartz module. The style is very striking but it looks like might be awkward to wear.
Chanel and watchmaker Audemars Piguet have collaborated on a new version of Chanel's popular J12 collection. The J12 calibre 3125 is done in 18K yellow gold and black ceramic. The 42mm case is done in ceramic and 18kt yellow gold and it has a ceramic bracelet with a gold buckle. The watch also has a sapphire crystal and display back. The movement is the automatic Audemars caliber AP3125 with 40 jewels, beating at 21,600 bph and with a 60 hour power reserve.
