Let us be honest: watches tell more than the time. These mini-masterpieces showcase craftsmanship, tradition, technology and innovation, and this year's standout releases make the case more eloquently than ever.
As the world's oldest uninterrupted watchmaker, Vacheron Constantin has long held a special place in the realm of horology. The company is best known for elegant dress watches, but back in 1977, to celebrate its 222nd birthday, it shed its typecasting to take on the casual luxury of Audemars Piguet's new Royal Oak and Patek Philippe's even newer Nautilus. With a bold case, broad shoulders and an integrated steel bracelet held together by large, geometric centre links, Vacheron's aptly named 222 was a wonderful example of functional purity. Sadly, just 500 pieces and seven years later, it was replaced by a 1980s accident of design.
Yet the 222 set the template for a permanent Overseas collection that launched in 1996 and was updated in 2004. It is odd, then, that it has taken 20 years to finally conjure the 222's allure, but this third-generation model, the Overseas Ultra-Thin, does the original proud, combining its tell-tale faceted bezel and integrated bracelet with the legendary calibre 1120, still the world's thinnest full-rotor automatic movement.
"Vacheron Constantin's strategy is now to have 100 per cent in-house movements for mechanical watches," says Christian Selmoni, the maison's product development and marketing director. "Overseas was the last collection to be upgraded, and that was the key reason for this third generation."
As with previous Overseas models, the Ultra-Thin offers a soft-iron inner case to enhance resistance to magnetism and a quick-change system that allows easy interchangeability between alligator, rubber and metal straps. Fit for any occasion, the indescribable beauty of this watch is how right it feels on the wrist. Try one on and you will see just what we mean.
A totally French joint venture, the Richard Mille RM 50-02 ACJ is what happens when you team the mechanical watch industry's most innovative and uncompromising brand with Airbus, the world leader in aviation. Presumably designed for the select few owners of Airbus Corporate Jets, it boasts a distinctive aeroplane-window-shaped case crafted from a titanium-aluminium alloy used in jet turbine blades, a dazzling extra-light skeletonised design coated in special aeronautical paints, and a split-seconds chronograph tourbillon movement engineered with energy efficiency as its guiding principle. It is an eye-catching watch with an eye-watering price tag, and only thirty examples will ever be made.
This year also marks the 20th anniversary of Chopard's high-end LUC manufacture, and to mark the occasion the company has created the ultra-thin LUC XPS 1860 in steel, alongside a more expensive 18-karat rose-gold version limited to 100 units. It is a handsome 40mm automatic dress watch that combines understated elegance with rare watchmaking expertise.
Elsewhere, Louis Vuitton's new Escale Spin Time pushes the boundaries of creativity, pairing an in-house spinning-time complication with the miniature painting that makes the brand's Escale dials so special; the time is revealed in a 24-hour format via spinning cubes hand-painted with colourful nautical flags. Patek Philippe, meanwhile, made its biggest announcement of the year with the Ref 5930, the world's smallest and thinnest world-timer chronograph at 39.5mm by 12.86mm, applying a thoroughly modern twist to a famously traditional complication.
