Flower Power: Vacheron Constantin’s Métiers d’Art Florilège

For the first time since it launched its limited edition Métiers d’Art collection, Vacheron Constantin dedicated this year’s series to the fairer sex. The Métiers d’Art Florilège trilogy presents three designs, each referencing a beautifully rendered botanical illustration from Robert John Thornton’s The Temple of Flora, published in 1799. The reference book, featuring artwork by the top botanical illustrators and painters of the time, remains a valued reference even more than two centuries later. Three of the book’s 90 plates—the strelitzia, the white lily, and the China Limodoron—have been reproduced on watch dials using the ancient decorative crafts of enameling, guilloché engraving, and gem setting. Vacheron Constantin will produce 20 pieces of each variation with round diamonds, plus another five pieces, designated for Vacheron Constantin boutiques, set with baguette diamonds. Along with its in-house team of craftspeople, Vacheron Constantin commissioned independent artisan Anita Porchet, who is regarded as Switzerland’s most revered enamellist. Porchet signs each dial with her initials.

Leading Ladies: Glashütte Original Debuts Its Pavonina Collection

At the 63rd Berlinale International Film Festival last February, film critics showered praise on Juliette Binoche and Paulina García for their performances, while off-screen, event sponsor Glashütte Original debuted its new leading lady, the Pavonina watch collection. German celebrities including Iris Berben, Natalia Wörner, and Katarina Witt  attended Pavonina’s premiere on February 11 at the Direktorenhaus, a historic building that was transformed into a hip event venue for Berlin’s design and art scene.

On The Road to Mandalay: A Mission of Burma

Orient Express' Road to Mandalay sails the Irrawaddy River.

Orient Express’s Road to Mandalay.

At dusk each day, a small crowd assembles at the top of the Shwesandaw Pagoda in Bagan, Myanmar, also known as Burma. Travelers from far and near—including Buddhist monks clad in maroon robes—make the steep climb up battered, timeworn steps to watch the sun sink behind the horizon and the mighty Irrawaddy River in the distance. Orient Express’s river cruiser, Road to Mandalay, is anchored in the muddy waters awaiting a four-night sojourn that will take us 128 nautical miles upriver to the fabled city of Mandalay. Despite some clouds, the afterglow casts a golden hue over the dusty plain dotted with thousands of red sandstone pagodas of all shapes and sizes. More than 2,000 of the original 13,000 structures have survived or have been reconstructed after being toppled by earthquakes over the ages.

Road Show: The Louis Vuitton Classic Serenissima Run

A 1936 Lancia Astura

The throaty roar of revving engines echoed off Monte Carlo’s famous casino and the neighboring Hotel de Paris as drivers prepared for the start of the Louis Vuitton Classic Serenissima Run last April. The brand, which celebrates travel, has sponsored seven of these elite classic rallies around the world since 1993. Christian Philippsen, who is in charge of the jury and car selection, reviewed more than 120 applications for the 42 slots, selecting only exceptional cars to create a jaw-dropping $300-million field that included William Evans’ 1913 Isotta Frachini IM, Arturo Keller’s 1938 Mercedes-Benz 500K (which was awarded the best of show prize), Bruce Meyer’s 1929 Bentley 4 ½ liter, Michael Leventhal’s 1950 Ferrari 166MM, and Thomas Price’s 1962 Ferrari 250 GTO, a car so rare that a similar model recently sold for more than $30 million.

Stephen Forsey

Stephen Forsey (Ben Dauchez for Greubel Forsey)

In 1999, Robert Greubel and Stephen Forsey of Greubel Forsey began working together with the premise that all had not yet been invented in mechanical watchmaking, particularly with reference to the tourbillon’s use in wristwatches. They devoted years of research and development to devise new tourbillon systems for the 21st century, which have captured chronometry awards as well as the hearts and imaginations of mechanical watchmaking devotees worldwide.

Please explain the concept behind the tourbillon for those who may not be familiar with it.

The first single-axis tourbillon was invented for pocket watches in order to overcome accuracy problems associated with gravity, lubrication, and materials issues. The tourbillon averages for gravity-induced errors on the balance wheel oscillator by continually rotating the regulating system. This was particularly effective with the pocket watch because its balance was usually in a vertical position.

Métiers of Time: Vacheron Constantin’s Les Univers Infinis

“The things I want to express are so beautiful and pure,” declared Maurits Cornelis Escher, the celebrated 20th-century Dutch graphic artist. Escher’s enigmatic prints often bend the conventional rules of visual perception with mirror imagery and repetitive interlocking motifs known as tessellations. In its ongoing pursuit to advance watchmaking’s centuries-old métiers d’art for the modern era, Geneva watchmaker Vacheron Constantin approached the Escher Foundation and gained the rights to reinterpret Escher’s works for its latest Métiers d’Art series, Les Univers Infinis.

Starck Reality: Le Royal Monceau Raffles Paris

When Le Royal Monceau opened in 1928, Paris was a magnet for artists who rebelled against convention to usher in a new age of modernism. A similar visionary spirit infuses the hotel’s recent reinvention under the auspices of the exuberant French designer Philippe Starck. Contemporary art is central to Starck’s concept for the new Le Royal Monceau Raffles Paris, which reopened in December 2010 after a three-year transformation. While many five-star hotels showcase impressive art collections, Le Royal Monceau cultivates an artistic culture that is expressed through an extensive assemblage of eclectic works, an art bookstore carrying more than 700 titles, a 99-seat cinema for film screenings, a gallery space for public exhibitions, and Paris’ only art concierge, who advises and guides guests who wish to immerse themselves in the Parisian art scene.

Revival Style: The Return of Marina B Jewels

The bold, colorful jewels in the Marina B collection may look familiar. Established by Marina Bulgari in 1977, the label has been resurrected by its new owner Paul Lubetsky, owner and CEO of Windsor Jewelers in New York City. With the acquisition, Lubetsky took possession of more than 10,000 original hand-painted renderings and all the original moldings, which have allowed him to exactly reproduce Marina B classics in the same European ateliers that made them decades ago.

Eric Ripert

Eric Ripert wearing a Vacheron Constantin Malte Chronograph

Why are so many chefs passionate about watches?

There are similarities between watchmakers and chefs. It’s about craftsmanship more than anything else. In watchmaking, artistry comes in the design and when they create different complications for calculating time. For chefs, the artistry is in the look of the plate and also in the way we create flavors. We find ways to control flavors to create a dish like they control time. Those similarities bring us together in some way subconsciously. A watch is very useful for us because we work under time restrictions, and it’s a beautiful object that we respect.

Legacy Pledge: MB&F’s LM1

What’s this? Has Max Büsser gone conventional on us? Today’s launch of the LM1, the first MB&F Legacy Machine, took the watch world by surprise not with its radical timekeeping vision, but rather with its traditional, round case. Following the sci-fi HM4 and HM3, expectations were no doubt pinned on yet an even more fantastical contraption. Not this time, responded Büsser, who decided to directly reference watchmaking history instead of conjuring up another futuristic machine. His impetus for the new piece arose from thinking more about time travel à la Jules Verne rather than space travel à la Battlestar Galactica. He asked himself what kind of watch would he create if he were born 100 years earlier in 1867 rather than in 1967. Naturally, a round pocket watch was the inspirational starting point. But, while the LM1 pays tribute to watchmaking’s golden age of invention from 1780 to 1870, it still breaks some rules so as not to disappoint MB&F’s renegade fans.