Gift Guide - Gloffke

insiDeR
Create Your
Own Time
Vacheron Constantin’s
bespoke watch service.
By Karen Cure
78 AFFLUENT PAGE LUXURY INDEX | DECEMBER 2010
To celebrate their wedding day, Katie Holmes gave Tom
cruise a watch by Vacheron constantin, engraved “i
love you.” at the 48th Grammy award ceremony in
2006, Kanye West wore a yellow-gold Vacheron constantin
Overseas chronograph, a model not unlike the one J-Lo bought
for her then-fiancé Ben affleck, to celebrate their engagement.
and it was Vacheron constantin who made the one-of-a-kind
watch given by an unnamed sheikh as a wedding gift to
diana, princess of Wales — its 18-karat white-gold case
embellished by 108 perfectly matched emerald-cut diamonds.
(The design mimicked that of the firm’s 188-diamond
1979 Kallista, now valued at an estimated $11 million.)
Vacheron constantin watches have also been worn by napoléon
Bonaparte, pope pius xi, the duke of Windsor, presidents
Harry S. Truman and dwight d. Eisenhower, interviewer Larry
King, actor charlie Sheen, violinist itzhak perlman, current
Le Bernardin co-owner and executive chef Eric Ripert,
and longtime Ferrari cEO Jean Todt, now president of
the Fédération internationale de l’automobile.
Vacheron constantin fans, among wristwatch-collecting
cognoscenti, praise the venerable watchmaker’s exquisite choice
of materials, the interplay of engineering and design, and the
sophisticated, accurate movements — “a blend of rigorous strategy
and creative freedom,” says publicis Group chairman and cEO
Maurice Lévy, another devotee. “no other manufacturer details
their dials or their cases as uniquely as Vacheron constantin,”
says retired continental airlines chairman and cEO Gordon
Bethune, another collector. Robert Maron, chairman of the
Geneva-based horological auction house antiquorum, describes
the corporate style as a fusion of French design sensibilities and
faultless Swiss technology. perhaps because of all of the above,
Vacheron constantin watches simply feel good on the wrist.
a brand identity distinguished by a quarter-millennium of
fame could easily inhibit the growth of the brand in the present.
not so with Vacheron constantin. Founded in 1755 by Jean-Marc
Vacheron and expanded by his grandson’s partnership with
31-year-old François constantin, the august firm has been at
the forefront of watchmaking innovation since the beginning.
Vacheron constantin was the first watchmaker to produce standardized
interchangeable watch parts; one of the first to produce
a wristwatch of a type we know today (in 1889, an 18-karat
bangle bracelet, which was auctioned in 1994 for $19,531); and
one of the first to create a watch in platinum — a precious metal
so fabulously expensive and so notoriously difficult to work with
that only a handful of watchmakers have developed the
technical skills to master it; as well as having been the
creator of the world’s slimmest mechanical watch, the
patrimony (its movement just 1.64 mm thick), which debuted
in 1955 to mark the firm’s 200th year of watchmaking. The
year 2003 brought the Tourbillion watch in platinum,
a fashion-wise accessory that had to be ordered 18 months
in advance, despite the six-figure price tag mandated by the
1,000 man-hours of labor that go into each watch. in 2005
came the Tour de l’ile watch, cleverly mixing cutting-edge
technologies and traditional horological expertise, a
masterwork that was initially priced at $1.5 million and
was created to celebrate the company’s 250th anniversary.
“... a masterwork that
was initially priced at
$1.5 million and was created
to celebrate the company’s
250th anniversary.”
DECEMBER 2010 | AFFLUENT PAGE LUXURY INDEX 79