Today was a great day for the ladies at the SIHH. It started at Parmigiani with a beautiful Tonda skeleton with an opaque dial. It seemed a little counter-productive to spend all that time polishing and angling to then hide the movement, but strangely enough the lace-like silhouette of the skeleton movement below the dial gave the timepiece a particularly mysterious and feminine design. And the movement was visible through the exhibition case back for those (like me) who love the finishings.
Following on from Parmigiani, I stepped into the magical world of Van Cleef & Arpels who presented 18 incredible ladies’ timepieces including a new Cadenas (padlock) collection inspired by a timepiece from the 1930s, a series of Charmes Extraordinaire Langage des Fleurs and two poetic complications with a lady bird and a bird of paradise. The star of the show was a high-jewelry koi carp secret watch crafted out of 8,000 precious stones.
Piaget presented six gorgeous new Altiplanos for ladies with gold bracelets and diamonds, as well as a selection of timepieces that replicate a watch that Jacky Kennedy used to wear with semi precious stone dials.
One of the most spectacular ladies’ watches of the day was to be found at Richard Mille. Not the first place you would think to look for a ladies timepiece, but the brand had truly spoiled the girls this year with a ladies’ tourbillon hidden in a magnolia that opened and closed every five minutes. They also unveiled a new RM51-02 Diamond Twister tourbillon and an edgy new gold bracelet that I was dying to try on.
I am going to have sweet horological dreams tonight!
Daily Statistics:
Weather: 0°C and just a few snowflakes
Brands: 7
Watches: 63
