Vacheron Constantin Introduces Symphonia Grande Sonnerie Wristwatch (With a Little Help From its Friends)
Vacheron Constantin claimed two of the most complex watches unveiled at SIHH 2017, both million dollar masterpieces. The first being the two-faced Celestia Astronomical Grand Complication, while the second is the Les Cabinotiers Symphonia Grande Sonnerie 1860, the Geneva watchmaker’s first grande sonnerie wristwatch. The Symphonia is major, both physically and metaphorically. The case is a […]
There’s a case for letting the dust settle before you start writing lists after a watch fair. You know, the fullness of time, emotions recollected in tranquility, all that. Or, you could just ride the wave of enthusiasm/delirium while it’s still surging and put it out there, on the spot, from the ‘backstage area’ of one of the booths. Which is precisely what we did on the final day of SIHH 2017 after some frantic notebook scribbling and hurried discussion. We ended up not agreeing enough to do a team list just yet (after all, we’re different people). So we stuck to five each. We’re quite sure that when we get home and start poring over all the photos and videos with fresh eyes that things will change. But until then, these are some piping hot croissants, fresh from the SIHH oven. And boy, are the watches (and our photographer Marcus’ shots of them) toasty. Enjoy with a cup of coffee.
No one was quite sure what to expect at SIHH this year, so it was a thrill to see Cartier getting on the front foot with a female-focused re-release of the Panthère de Cartier. First launched in the 1980s, it sat well with the cultural cues of the time: big hair, shoulder pads, Dynasty. Charlie Sheen’s character, Bud Fox, wore one in Wall Street. And one of our favourite photographs shows the Panthère on the wrist of a fresh-faced, blow-dried Pierce Brosnan, accessorised with a pinky ring and a luxuriant pectoral thatch, his top four buttons left undone, as was standard in the era. That, friends, was how you rocked a Panthère. The theme goes back way further than that, though. The big cat first slunk into the picture in 1914, when Louis Cartier – who was running the company at the time with his brothers Jacques and Pierre – commissioned a painting by French artist George Barbier, featuring a woman with a panther lounging at her feet. Just a few months later, the creature appeared on its first piece of Cartier jewellery, and ever since then it’s been an ongoing motif across both the brand’s male and female collections, with everything from watches and…
For many consumers and manufacturers, now is not the time for extravagant, outlandish watches. That’s not to say SIHH doesn’t have its fair share of outlandish, extravagant and (it must be said) amazing timepieces – but they’re very much a niche proposition. The vast majority of real-world buyers are after something simpler and in a soft and uncertain economy the versatile round steel watch, free of gimmick and full of quality is an appealing option. Happily, this year SIHH is delivering quite a few watches that fit this bill. For me, one of the best is the revivified Jaeger-LeCoultre Master Control collection. For the past 25 years, these clean, round watches have been the starting point for many who’ve wanted to get into the brand, but (for whatever reason) haven’t heeded the call of the Reverso. These new Master Controls are pitch perfect heritage-ish watches that do everything right. The collection includes a dual time and a chronograph that we’ll show you down the track, but for now we’d like to focus on the Master Control Date. Before we get to that stunning dial, it would be remiss of us not to mention the well-proportioned 39mm steel case, which is très slim…