A Week On The Wrist: The Blancpain Villeret Ultra-Slim Complete Calendar In White Gold, A Modern Take On A Classic Complication
At the time when Blancpain was busy developing the first true dive watch – the Fifty Fathoms came before the Submariner, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise – triple calendars with moon phases were all the rage. In the 1950s, it seemed liked every company had one in their portfolio, including Rolex. Today, you could say the opposite is true. Dive watches are everywhere, while Blancpain is one of a smaller group of manufactures with a complete calendar and moonphase still in its lineup. I spent a week with the Villeret Ultra-Slim Complete Calendar in white gold, the modern incarnation of a classic, and the results were nothing if not interesting.
Forget for a moment that the Chairman of Hublot, and the man-behind-the-brand Jean-Claude Biver would look frighteningly Santa-like in a red jumpsuit, sans the paunch. Disregard also that he’s the only other man on earth with the kind of energy required to visit every single household in the world in one night, and just focus on the fact that the Big Bang Meca-10 All Black is basically living, ticking, time-telling Mecano, in a very adult form. Those old enough may recall getting it as a child – and building a train, or a bridge. This far more baller variant requires no assembly. Just a wrist, which, with this on it, is about to get a major renovation. Who should you buy this for: The adult that doesn’t want to grow up, but likes all the good things that come with it. What’s the damage: Under $30k
It was a complete leap of faith. @thetiafox, Melbourne-based citizen of the world and curator of all things immaculate looks like she was born to work with a watch like the Cartier Hypnose. So, with a little help from Cartier Australia, we arranged for the two to meet. The plan was simple: get them together for a week, then get out of the way. The results were, well, romantic. The Tia Fox, or Melanie Liu to use her real name, not only took the watches to some of Melbourne’s most magnificent and romantic spaces – all with a classic, architectural bent to reference the design of the Hypnose, so thoughtful this one – she also built the photo shoot around a little love story; a narrative about a couple that meet when the female lead (Mel) drops a printed neck scarf in the docklands. To say any more would be to give the story away. To find out more, check in at The Tia Fox on Instagram where a couple of the images have already been posted, with another going up later today. So we’ll hold fire until Friday, when Mel will publish all photos from the shoot, and share her…