As editor of QP, the specialist watch magazine, I frequently come across the assumption that I will only like the most horologically complicated watches. This is annoying in that it is partly, but not by a long mark, true. However clever the micro-mechanical trickery underneath the dial is, attraction is still the key.
Generally the rule for watches that are more interior has been to keep the design traditional – Breguet hands, enamel or guilloche dial and simple case. The corollary of this is if you want style that goes beyond traditional, then you should downplay your expectations on the substance front.
That, however, has changed. While most of the Parisian jewellery houses have been making watches for sometime, the serious collectors could ignore their offerings as mere ‘fashion watches’ – the industry’s most contemptuous slur. But take a look at the likes of Van Cleef & Arpels’ Midnight in Paris (£38,300). All the style and wit that comes for free with the rates in Paris’ 1er Arrondissement and a truly clever and sophisticated movement underneath.
The dial is a rotating disc of Aventurine that shows the constellations as they appear above Paris through the year. The “officier” case opens to reveal a movement set in a meteorite placer and showing a calendar disc linked to the dial on the front. By James Gurney