Chanel champions ceramic, Audemars Piguet and Carolina Bucci reunite, and the best constellation-inspired watches
Launched last year, Chanel’s Code Coco watch brings together the house hallmarks: physically, in the quilted pattern and closure taken from a 2.55 handbag clasp, and figuratively, in its collision of masculine and feminine.
The new version uses another house code: ceramic. In 2000, the Chanel J12 was the first all-ceramic watch by a luxury fashion house, and the durable material suits the streamlined Code Coco. Steel and black ceramic with diamond accents: the ultimate mix of utilitarian and decorative.
Steel, ceramic and diamond Code Coco, £8,800, Chanel
On reflection
Following their collaboration in 2016, Audemars Piguet has again turned to jeweller Carolina Bucci to reimagine its Royal Oak.
Carolina Bucci modelling the new Royal Oak Frosted Gold Limited Edition, price on request, Audemars Piguet
As before, the case and bracelet are of frosted gold, achieved by beating the metal with a diamond-tipped tool – a technique perfected by Bucci’s ancestors in their Florentine atelier. This year, she has also Bucci-fied the dial with a high-shine mirror as glassy as a frozen Alpine lake. By far the fairest of them all.
Royal watch
Despite being only 11 years old, Cartier’s Ballon Bleu rubs shoulders with the likes of the Tank and the Crash in terms of notoriety – helped, no doubt, by the Duchess of Cambridge: it’s her everyday go-to.
Rose-gold and diamond Ballon Blanc, £13,400, Cartier
Its new, daintier sibling, the Ballon Blanc, sees the distinctive cabochon sapphire crown replaced by a single diamond at four o’clock, and its pebble-like case shrunk to a diminutive 26mm.
Operatic debut
Family-run Milan jeweller Buccellati celebrates its 100th birthday next year, and its creations have an air of bygone elegance.
Yellow-gold, white-gold, diamond and mother-of-pearl Opera, price on request, Buccellati
Take the new Opera watch: more jewel than timepiece, its elongated quatrefoil dial is framed by 167 diamonds, or by intricately engraved Graffito textured gold – this is most striking with a cuff of silken Rigato gold, both painstaking techniques having been passed down the generations.
Artistry in harness
Patience is a prerequisite for watchmakers, but spare a thought for the Hermès artisan who completed this 2,200-piece jigsaw within the Arceau’s 41mm dial.
Rose-gold and leather Arceau Robe du Soir, price on request, hermes.com
This micro-mosaic involved cutting 3,500 minuscule calfskin tiles then selecting the shades to match the horse on the house’s Robe du Soir silk scarf. Then she repeats the process 11 more times…
Three of the best: constellation-inspired watches
Steel and diamond BR S Grey Diamond Eagle, £4,800, Bell & Ross
White-gold and diamond Lady Arpels Zodiac, £138,000, Van Cleef & Arpels
Gold, diamond and gold thread Dior VIII Montaigne Clair de Lune, price on request, Dior
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