Some watches are designed to measure time, whilst others use their mechanics to showcase artistic disciplines that rarely find a place on a dial. It is this second concept that underpins ‘Métiers d’Art Tribute to the Animal Kingdom’, Vacheron Constantin’s new project within its ‘One of Not Many’ craftsmanship programme. The collection brings together six concept watches and six crafts, many of which originate from fields outside traditional watchmaking.
The starting point is as simple as it is demanding: to invite six artisans to translate their respective specialities into the dimensions of a fully functional watch. Gold embroidery, feather art, wood marquetry, glass sculpture, paper sculpture and micro-origami make up a repertoire that is unusual in Haute Horlogerie. The animal kingdom acts as the link between the six creations.
Scale is, in fact, one of the defining elements of the project. The pieces are housed in 42-millimetre cases, and the artists have had to work with a margin of no more than four millimetres between the dial and the sapphire crystal. Techniques typically devised for larger surfaces and volumes have required years of research, prototyping, new tools and a re-evaluation of the very nature of the artisanal craft itself.
The result lies somewhere between the sculptural and the almost imperceptible. A snake, for example, is made up of more than 200 tiny fragments taken from seven monal pheasant feathers. Creating it necessitated the development of a micro-scalpel from a needle and required around 250 hours of research and prototyping. The eye, crafted from 18-carat gold and enamel, deliberately introduces a horological element into a composition dominated by the texture and iridescence of the feathers.
In another of the pieces, a falcon emerges through three-dimensional marquetry crafted from twelve different types of wood. Three different techniques create the depth of the composition, including a ‘feather-by-feather’ application developed specifically for the wing. On such a scale, conventional carpentry tools are no longer useful: scalpels, microscopic carbide fragments and bespoke sanding tools take their place.
The collection also explores materials whose fragility seems, at first glance, incompatible with horological precision. Glass is transformed into a hand-sculpted transparent octopus; Japanese paper into six micro-origami sheets suspended at different heights; and white cotton paper takes on volume to form a crocodile and its landscape. Added to these is a tiger crafted using embroidery with gold and silk threads, another craft taken to microscopic dimensions.
Beyond their aesthetic diversity, the six watches share the same mechanical architecture. Vacheron Constantin has employed the Calibre 2460 G4, an automatic movement whose hour, minute, day of the week and date displays appear in four small peripheral apertures. By freeing the centre of the dial from conventional hands and hour markers, virtually its entire surface is made available for artistic interpretation.
This choice perhaps sums up the concept behind ‘Tribute to the Animal Kingdom’ better than any other: watchmaking technology does not disappear, but rather recedes visually to make way for craftsmanship. Even the oscillating weight, crafted from 22-carat gold and hand-engraved with motifs inspired by artisans’ tools, forges a link between the mechanics and those who have contributed to each creation.
The initiative is also part of a tradition that Vacheron Constantin has nurtured for centuries. Founded in 1755, the manufacture maintains in-house crafts such as guilloché, engraving, enamelling and gem-setting. With ‘One of Not Many’, however, the focus shifts towards disciplines outside the usual watchmaking vocabulary and towards collaboration with independent creators.
In an industry where excellence is often expressed through complications, precious materials or hand-finished details, Métiers d’Art Tribute to the Animal Kingdom offers a different interpretation of luxury: that of the time invested in mastering the minute and in making possible, on a wrist-sized scale, what until now belonged to other realms of creation.
