Style and substance
Women no longer have to choose between aesthetics and technique, as seen in these ladies’ complication watches
MORE than ever, women are embracing the technical complexity and mechanical beauty of timepieces with complications. Usually made in smaller sizes, ladies’ watches allow for brands to showcase their creativity, artisanship and watchmaking prowess. Here are four women’s watches with complications that will turn heads and start conversations.
Patek Philippe Rare Handcrafts Minute Repeater Reference 5178G-012
This minute repeater (price on application) was one of five striking watches – a signature grand complication of the manufacture – unveiled in March. Its stunning dial was executed with the ancient and rare handcraft technique of flinque enamel, which results in the hypnotic hand-guilloched swirling motif to be visible beneath the Grand Feu midnight blue transparent enamel.
The slender 40-mm white-gold case houses the self-winding calibre R 27 PS, whose two cathedral gongs endow the minute repeater with a particularly rich, deep sound. Its sophisticated mechanism with refined finishings is visible through a transparent sapphire crystal caseback that’s interchangeable with a solid white-gold caseback.
The captivating timepiece also comes with two interchangeable straps in vivid hues: shiny peacock blue alligator leather with cream stitching and shiny orange alligator leather with blue stitching.
Vacheron Constantin Traditionnelle Perpetual Calendar ultra-thin watch
Inspired by Vacheron Constantin models from the last century, this 36.5-mm watch flaunts its technical complexity in two feminine guises (S$131,000 each): white-gold with a blue-grey dial, and pink gold with a white mother-of-pearl dial. Its in-house calibre 1120 QP features the distinctive aspects of the Gregorian calendar, displaying the days, dates, months and years on a four-year cycle, including a leap-year indication that doesn’t need any correction until the year 2100.
A romantic moon phase at 6 o’clock tops off the display. Adding sparkle to the watch’s bezel and top of the lugs are 76 round-cut diamonds, while the crown is adorned with a round-cut diamond. For more styling options, the watch comes with an interchangeable alligator leather strap, which can be swapped easily at the touch of a push button on the underside and without any tools.
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Cartier Prive Tank Normale skeleton watch
This year, the Tank Normale joins Cartier Prive, a collectors’ collection comprising unique and sought-after models of the past through limited-edition and numbered watches. A standout among the time-only variants is a skeletonised model incorporating a 24-hour complication marked by an open-worked sun and crescent moon.
While the minutes hand completes a revolution around the dial in 60 minutes, it takes 24 hours instead of the usual 12 for the hour hand to make a round. This means that daytime hours appear on the dial’s upper half and nighttime hours appear on the lower part.
Skeletonised bridges are coated in shades that graduate from light to dark, to cleverly demarcate each half and represent the day-to-night transition. Equipped with the manual-winding calibre 9628 MC, the 35.2-mm by 27.8-mm watch is available in 50 individually numbered limited editions each in platinum with grey, and burgundy alligator leather straps (S$115,000), as well as in yellow gold with two alligator leather straps in brown, and green (S$102,000).
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There’s also a 20-piece limited edition platinum version with a case set with 42 brilliant-cut diamonds (S$153,000) if you’re after something more glamorous.
Franck Muller Cintree Curvex Retrograde Hour Tourbillon
This ultra-complex ladies’ watch (S$188,600) combines a tourbillon with a hallmark Franck Muller complication, the retrograde hour.
Featuring a lacquered dial stamped with a sun-ray guilloche pattern, this watch tells the time in an unorthodox way. Unlike the traditional hour hand that rotates on a central axis, a retrograde hour hand follows a 220-degree arc and instantly jumps back to its starting point when it reaches its end point.
With 12 o’clock remaining at its usual position as a reference point, the hours follow one another in a clockwise direction until 5.59. Once it hits the numeral “6”, the hour hand flies back anti-clockwise to the indication of six o’clock on the left side of the dial. The minutes and seconds hands, however, rotate in a regular fashion around the central axis.
The use of a 220-degree arc allows for the tourbillon to be integrated, adding to the watch’s unique visual spectacle. Driven by a manual-winding MVT FM 2050C1-HR movement with four days’ power reserve, the 42.25-mm by 30.3-mm watch is available in white gold with diamonds and hand-painted numerals in Franck Muller’s signature Color Dreams hues.
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