Style & Beauty In Plain Sight Open Secrets Jewellery with a hidden, timekeeping twist is back on the agenda this year. Ming Liu shortlists the standouts Mademoiselle Privé Bouton Serti Neige – a unique piece in Chanel’s seven-model line W ith their dials tucked behind jewels or sequestered in hidden compartments, secret watches are natural talking points, even in 2020 when we’re having fewer in-person conversations than ever. At first glance, secret watches are dazzling jewellery, but upon closer inspection and some – nota bene – conversation with the wearer, a watch is revealed. This multifunctionality has long fuelled the design’s popularity, says Kristian Spofforth, head of jewellery sales at Sotheby’s in London. “It’s versatile, cool and something different,” he explains. “They turn a watch into a bracelet or a bracelet into a watch, which is double for money.” This year’s secret watches are looking especially enticing. In October, Van Cleef & Arpels (vancleefarpels.com) launched three models in its couture-inspired Ludo line. Set on a supple gold bracelet of interlocking briquettes or hexagons, the secret watches come in three gorgeous colour combinations with hard stones – pink and blue sapphires on lapis lazuli; rubies and coral; or blue sapphires, emeralds and chrysoprase – with the watches 20 CENTURION-MAGAZINE.COM
Piaget’s Exquisite Moments watch from the Wings of Light collection Van Cleef & Arpels’ Ludo watch – worn here as a pendant PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE WATCHMAKERS peeking out with the flick of the gem-dressed stones. What’s more, the watch face can be removed and hung on a necklace, a house signature. “It’s part of our tradition to make transformable high jewellery and timepieces with a secret component,” says president and CEO Nicolas Bos. “It makes them precious while playful and mysterious.” Indeed, there’s something mischievous about the secret watch’s dual personality. Harry Winston (harrywinston.com) captures this beautifully in its wonderful new Ultimate Kaleidoscope jewellery object. Inspired by an archival piece, this miniaturised 63mmby-22mm delight is a fully functioning kaleidoscope, the canister encrusted with a geometric medley of mother-of-pearl panels, diamonds, blue and yellow sapphires, and Paraiba tourmalines, as a potpourri of coloured stones – topaz, pink, blue and yellow sapphires, among them – jingle at the kaleidoscopic end. The whole extravaganza is then topped with a discreet, removable watch face, trimmed in baguette diamonds. That element of surprise combined with wow factor makes secret watches perfect for high jewellery. Bulgari’s Barocko collection, where Roman baroque architecture meets extravagant rock’n’roll, saw the house merge haute horlogerie and haute joaillerie in the exquisite Octo Roma Arabesque watch. Here, an openwork rose gold medallion-like case – set in a floral swirl of pink sapphires, Paraiba tourmalines, emeralds and diamonds – lifts to reveal Bulgari’s award-winning, ultra-thin skeletonised Octo movement with a flying tourbillon. Elsewhere, Bulgari’s snake-motif Serpenti secret watches, its head traditionally hiding a watch, are among the most iconic designs around, with pieces from the 1970s easily fetching 0,000 at auction. The form sees a new treatment in the sublime Serpenti Misteriosi High-Jewellery Baroque Pearls secret watch, where two snakes coil around a diamond and pearl cuff, meeting head-on at three voluptuous cabochons – the largest one of which conceals a secret watch. Dior Joaillerie’s creative director Victoire de Castellane (dior.com) calls secret watches “bracelets that tell time” – and her Dior et Moi high-jewellery collection, themed around the beloved toi et moi tradition that pairs stones together, features two special secret watches. With an opal dial sequestered below a larger one, the watches are complemented with pink and purple sapphires in one, sapphire and emeralds in the second, which beautifully offset the fire in the black and white opals. Chaumet (chaumet.com), too, looked to architecture for its Perspectives highjewellery collection, producing an impressive 81 pieces centred on six chapters – and which all refreshingly bring Chaumet’s most › From top: white-opal watch, from the Dior et Moi collection; Harry Winston’s Ultimate Kaleidoscope CENTURION-MAGAZINE.COM 21
