Laying some style on the dial

28 September 2009

It seems even the watch brands have given up on pretending that watches are all about telling time. In an age when we’re surrounded by appliances that have virtually taken over this function, the concentration on accuracy and reliability has given way to all things bold and beautiful, the need to capture the imagination with an object that’s ravishing rather than rudimentary. It’s a bit like cars – practicality and dependability are things we’ve long taken for granted.

That was the message from this year’s annual watch fairs – BaselWorld in Basel and the Salon International de la Haute Horlogerie in Geneva (or SIHH) – where, despite attendances being down by as much as 20 per cent, the diversity of designs on show was greater than ever.

Never have there been so many options when it comes to dressing your wrist. It’s as if having concentrated on the workings of the watch and stuffed them with complications from dates to stopwatch functions, the manufacturers have discovered the potential of being creative with the most visible bit, the dial. Not only has 2009 presented us with round, square, elongated, enamelled and bejewelled dials, but across the board there is something new – the excavated dial. Even the plainest dials appear to have a depth and lustre deep enough to drown in.

At SIHH it was Cartier that led the way, chiselling away at model after model until all that was left in some cases were the numerals themselves. Design director Pierre Rainero explains: “At Cartier, the result must be beautiful, pleasant to look at. That’s the key point – you have to be desirable and the object should be something interesting, not only intellectually satisfactory.” His offerings were tiny sculptures – or rather large in some cases, the million-dollar Rotonde tourbillon measuring 50mm across. What more convenient place to enjoy a little art than on your wrist?

Other Cartier exotics, namely the Ballon Bleu tourbillon and Tank Americaine tourbillon, followed a similar theme. But it was the less expensive Cartier Santos 100 Skeleton that looked the purest, its etched-out numerals doubling as the framework for the cogs and springs of the movement.

Jaeger-LeCoultre followed suit with the Master Minute Repeater Grand Feu: classic enamel dial, refined numerals, cutaways revealing super-fine movement. Just 100 pieces will be made.

In contrast, A Lange & Söhne, the renowned and resurgent German maker, adopted a purer approach, showing polite pieces with hand-finished enamel dials. “Producing them is quite exciting and quite intense,” says Lange’s Arnd Einhorn. “It’s delicate work; done in three separate pieces.”

But that was just the starter. It followed up with the Lange Zeitwerk, which presents the time in an entirely different way – it’s the first mechanical wristwatch to combine a digital or “jumping” numeral display of hours and minutes with the more traditional display of the seconds. The dial is excavated to frame the numerals in little windows, while the subsidiary seconds dial retains the traditional hand indicator, as does a power-reserve indicator. Thanks to the unparalleled size of those numerals, you get the exact time at a glance. As Lange & Söhne describes it, there’s more: “With a whispered click and within fractions of a second, the minute display advances step by step until the watch initiates the big jump at the top of the hour. At this point, all three numeral discs switch forward simultaneously and instantaneously by exactly one unit. Here, timekeeping is elevated to the status of an event.”

Other “events” for the wrist included models from Van Cleef & Arpels – dials revolve to spell out little “scenes” – and Piaget, whose comely confections include an Altiplano model “inspired by tropical seas”. Its mother-of-pearl dial carries a luminescent coral motif so powerful, it was difficult to distinguish the time. But who cares about that? Check your mobile if that’s all you need.

Not that this was a difficulty for fellow SIHH exhibitor Audemars Piguet. They showed a hand-wound Jules Audemars Chronometer that, despite tiny dials and a plethora of cutaways and finishes from engraving to eggshell enamel, was as clear as day to read. The movement driving it all is said to be lubrication-free and beats at an astonishing 43,200 vibrations an hour; that said, it’s the look of the watch that hints at its $373,000 price tag.

It was a similar story at BaselWorld, where Tag Heuer, no stranger to wrist-machines, unveiled a version of the Monaco chronograph called the Twenty Four Concept in which the round dial and Zenith mechanism are suspended within the squarish case by tiny shock absorbers. In case you missed them lurking beneath the glass, they are a kind of anodised orange colour, matching the GT stripes adorning the watch-face.

This, of course, may not be the style of, say, Patek Philippe, but even conservative design now seems to arrive with unprecedented flair, as witnessed by its latest Officer Calatrava 5153J. Now fractionally larger at 38mm, the Calatrava’s yellow-gold case frames a handsome silvery dial handworked with a guilloche sunburst pattern. Not that the movement is neglected – the back of the watch swings open to reveal exquisitely finished workings.

Patek also announced a Calatrava model with an enamel dial, the 5116G. Patek’s Jasmina Steele notes: “To get 50 perfect dials, you need to produce 100.”
Things were even more daring at Bulgari, which showed a phalanx of Sotirio Bulgari models with multilayered dials, seductive surfaces and a cornucopia of finishes. It’s no accident that the brand has its own dial-manufacturing workshops that appear to have been working around the clock of late.

You sense similar activity took place at Breguet, whose creations include a new Classique – its dial both hand-engraved and engine-turned in complementary patterns – and a 45mm Marine Royale Alarm featuring a rose-gold dial with a wave-like treatment.

Not that lavish facials were restricted to über brands or watches costing five figures. Tag Heuer’s new Aquaracer 500 range has dials to die for; with clever contours, bold batons and subtle pinstripe-like grooves, it looks the part whether diving or dining. Baume & Mercier dialled into the zeitgeist with a 45mm Riviera Magnum XXL flyback chronograph that features a shadowy see-through visage revealing hints of the machinery underneath. Bell & Ross emboss the dial of their weighty BR 01 Airborne with a skull and crossbones that eerily glow green in the dark. And Raymond Weil offered up the Nabucco Rivoluzione, every detail of its dinner plate-sized dial picked out in black. Speaking of which, Chanel, which has made black its trademark over the years, turned to a new material – tiny polished ceramic blocks – to give its J12 Noir Intense a standout look all its own. There are 724 of the baguette-cut black bricks embedded in the watch.

Which brings us to two labels in the LVMH firmament: Christian Dior and Louis Vuitton. They have quite independently taken an entirely different route, attempting this year to make the dial disappear altogether. In doing so, they have, of course, brought more attention to it than ever.

Dior’s delicacy is the beguiling Christal Mystérieuse, a $40,000 piece you can virtually see through, powered by a seemingly invisible quartz movement. The watch is all sapphire crystal discs, driven from the edges, with mother-of-pearl highlights that form ever-changing patterns, which repeat only once a month. It’s about as dramatic as anything you could strap on your wrist. Almost.

Louis Vuitton followed with its own version of  the so-called mystery watch, an idea based on a style of late 19th-century clock in which the hands appeared to float, unconnected to any movement. The Louis Vuitton Tambour Mystérieuse costs 10 times that of the Dior (yes, about $350,000) and uses a combination of sapphire discs and a tiny mechanical movement to create a similar effect. That motor floats in the centre of the dial and is a marvel in itself; it can run for eight days and eight hours before it needs rewinding. Although surely the fun would be winding it every day, especially as it’s a mystery how the winder even connects with the movement? (Clue: maybe it turns the discs?)

It further illustrates the point that wristwatch design circa 2009 is about engaging the wearer by whatever means possible – all the better if there’s a little intrigue attached.

Source: Qantas The Australian Way October 2009