Steady, As She Goes

Understated Elegance

Fewer over-complications, more modest sizes and classicism were seen in many of the year’s offerings as the watch industry serves up a more discrete allure.

Cartier leads the way in presenting clean dials and highly refined watches with its Ballon Bleu de Cartier 39mm Flying Tourbilllon, which features an enamel dial in a rich shade of blue. The dial has a radiating motif that is created via guilloche on a disc of 18k white gold, which is then covered in several layers of translucent enamel. A watch carrying the Hallmark of Geneva, the model is equipped with the 9452 MC in-house calibre.

Another ultra-elegant watch is Vacheron Constantin’s Patrimony Contemporaine Ultra-Thin Calibre 1731, the thinnest manual-winding minute repeater on the market today, measuring at a mere 8.09mm thick. The classic, cambered dial shows a beaded minute circle, baton-shaped hands and alternating triangle and baton-shaped hour markers, with a small seconds offset at 8 o’clock, the first in the line. The curve of the case middle has been accentuated so as to trim down the silhouette, while the caseback has been opened as broadly as possible to reveal the minute repeater’s hammers and gongs.

Piaget presented a contender in the ultra-thin race with the Altiplano 38mm 900P, the world’s thinnest mechanical watch at 3.65mm. The secret of the watch is in the structure of the caseback, which also serves as the mainplate. The merge of movement and case has allowed the highly complex architecture to be as slender as possible, while even offering a generous power reserve of 48 hours. The watch is available in 18k white gold.