Boucheron (mentioned all over the place), has been working with Girard Perregaux for their watch collection since 2007. For their next collection, Audacious, they have given up all pretense of restraint.
The collection starts with a series of pieces in a sub-collection called L'Orientale. The basic piece has a mother-of-pearl dial, carved, painted and inlayed with an arabesque of diamonds, and surrounded by a triple ring of diamonds on the bezel. These are powered by the reliable, if inoffensive, GP 4000 movement.
| Steel case, dial set with sapphires | Rose gold case, dial set with rubies |
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Moving up in the collection we come to a pair of watches names Shéhérazade. These have dials of semi-precious stone mosaic set with colored stones in a dizzying pattern or circles and arabesques. To reinforce the vertigo, the subsecond dial is replaced with a rotating multi-colored wheel at 7 o'clock. As usual, the workmanship is exemplary. (NB: the 'crazy' is part of the model name NOT an editorial comment)
| Crazy Shéhérazade in rose gold and diamonds. Dial in Sonora Sunrise mosaic set with multicolored sapphires and diamonds. | Crazy Shéhérazade in white gold and diamonds. Dial in Lapis Lazuli mosaic set with multicolored sapphires, amethysts, aquamarines and diamonds. |
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Having featured animals in their watches, the basic subjects of the next three pieces is not a great surprise, but he execution is a bit unusual. For some reason, all three of the animal watches are referred to as "Crazy Jungle" although none of the animals depicted actually LIVE in the jungle.
Following in the same basic aesthetic as Sheherazade we have the elephant Hathi.
| The Crazy Jungle Hathi in white gold set with blue sapphires, diamonds and tsavorites. Dial in a Murano aventurine glass mosaic set with diamonds, sapphires, tsavorites, amethysts and onyx. "Crazy Seconds" disc of aventurine glass marquetry. |
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In the last couple of years using aquatic themes has become really quite popular, so these two pieces are not a complete surprise. The "crazy seconds" disk in both of them is set below the dial with a pattern representing small fish and bubbles, to try and give some life to the underwater scene. Interesting that they use a Flamingo here, as one was featured as a ring in their spring 2011 collection.
| The Crazy Jungle Seahorse watch in pink gold, diamonds, garnets, multicoloured sapphires and onyx. Marquetry of mother-of-pearl and petrified palmtree. Automatic GP4000 movement with "Crazy Seconds" disc of mother-of-pearl bubbles. | The Crazy Jungle Flamingo watch in white gold, diamonds, garnets, multicoloured sapphires, onyx and mother-of-pearl. Head of the flamingo and school of fishes appear under water. Automatic GP4000 movement with "Crazy Seconds" disc of shrimp and fish. |
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All this leads to the pinnacle piece of the collection, the Hera watch, a fully gem-set bracelet piece with a GP tourbillon movement. The watch has the form of a peacock, one of Hera's emblems. The movement is one of the GP three-bridge series, one of the more distinct and unusual of the current crop of Tourbillon movements, based on a late 19th century design. The watch has no dial per-say, but three concentric ovals of tourmalines set on the visable bottom-plate of the movement. The case is white-gold and set with 35 carets of diamonds, sapphires and Pariba tourmalines.
(pictures from TimeZone)
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More overdone than I usually go for, and the Hera manages to achieve Tacky IMO, but I actually quite like most of these. (Especially the Scheherazade, which manages to stay elegant despite the complexity...)