Time is Precious

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Time is Precious - Comparison
1 minute read
Watchmaking has always been intimately linked with jewellery. Both industries often join forces in the service of high-end luxury

Watchmakers and jewellers inhabit the same world. Both industries draw from centuries of ancestral knowledge, calling upon a variety of trades and crafts with the aim of creating objects of desire. This explains the worldwide success of the greatest watchmaker-jewellers, including Cartier, Bulgari and Piaget.

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Some would describe their products as jewellery pieces that tell the time, others as watches that are also jewellery. Whatever the conclusion, these are all beautiful objects that perform a useful function for their elegant wearers. In the world of high-end luxury, the line between watch and jewellery is often blurred. And that’s the world where these jewellery watches are to be found.

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You’ll see them at the high jewellery shows in Paris during fashion week, making an unexpected appearance among the necklaces, pendants, earrings, bracelets and rings.

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Although most are driven by quartz calibres, some raise their horological credentials by incorporating a mechanical movement. This year, for example, Bulgari has taken the bold decision to introduce a hand-wound mechanical movement, with a tourbillon, into a jewellery watch. Not only that – it’s skeletonised! But, this exceptional case apart, where jewellery watches are concerned the point is generally what happens on the outside of the case, not the interior.

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The creativity of these design studios appears limitless. At Chopard, co-president and artistic director Caroline Scheufele has added a peacock to the horological bestiary.

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Victoire de Castellane, artistic director of Dior’s jewellery division, continues to expand the maison’s jewellery lexicon with a new interpretation of the subtlety of lace. 

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While inspiration and style varies from one company to the next, the essential DNA of a jewellery watch changes very little. Exceptional gemstones are set on a bed of diamonds; a profusion of coloured stones hug the wrist sensuously, underlining the graceful motions of a feminine hand.

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The result is an opulent illustration of what can be accomplished with hundreds of hours of work. But that’s what absolute luxury is all about.

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