While all the excitement of late has been around “Monsieur,” big news for Chanel at Baselworld 2016 as the fashion house makes its first foray into the world of men’s timepieces, Chanel’s collection of high jewelry watches has been quietly but brilliantly making its presence known.
Granted, the arrival of Monsieur, reviewed previously on this site, is all the more newsworthy given that Chanel had until now only tiptoed into men’s products, with limited offerings in ties and colognes. One might argue that the J12 watch, a Chanel classic, was conceived with unisex appeal. Nevertheless, Monsieur is the first watch by Chanel staking its claim in unequivocal masculine territory.
Still, what Chanel does supremely well are high jewelry watches, the canvas on which the couture house most often expresses its creativity and its savoir-faire. The line-up of Les Éternelles de Chanel, a collection of high jewelry secret watches first introduced last year at Baselworld, has just been augmented by four.
What Chanel revealed at Baselworld 2016 were two new spectacular additions to Les Éternelles, remarkable by their richer color palette and their highly original bracelet design. Each continues the house’s tribute to the “matelassé” or quilted motif, an icon of Chanel’s leather good lines. Two other models in Les Éternelles collection had been presented last winter during Couture Week in Paris, the Signature Morganite Secret Watch and the Signature Diamond Secret Watch, both as part of the Signature de Chanel high jewelry collection.
Among the new pieces, the Signature Garnet Secret Watch features a sprinkling of garnets, diamonds, and yellow and orange sapphires, set around a central cushion-cut garnet mounted on a white gold matelassé background. The intensely orange-red Garnet, weighing in at 39.9 carats, brings a refreshing touch to the precious watch collection, allowing Chanel to bring into its creative fold the mystifying colors of semi-precious stones for an exotic, feminine touch.
Signature Saphir Secret Watch, in turn, combines white and pink gold to form a precious metallic quilted grid on which to exhibit a luscious 17.2-carat cushion-cut Padparadscha sapphire, an extremely rare and precious Sri Lankan sapphire that creates a delicate marriage of pink and orange hues, beautifully enhanced by a total of 61 carats of diamonds dispersed on the timepiece.
For each of the four timepieces, Chanel has varied the quilted motif of the bracelet, displaying a remarkable range in which the matelassé motif can be interpreted, from the linear grid of the Signature Diamond to the loosely checkered pattern of the Signature Saphir.
For each of the secret timepieces, the central stone lifts to reveal the secret watch dial.
