Results matching “boucheron”

Girard Perregaux (previously mentioned) has been in a bit of a funk recently, in terms of new products. They've put out slight modifications of their successful 1966 line and and ever-increasing number of "bridge" tourbillons, including some retina-searing jeweled pieces with Boucheron, but nothing innovative and technical. That has come to an end with the release of their Constant Escapement watch (there doesn't seem to be more of a name).

The escapement has been redesigned to solve the usual problem of isochronisity, that is even time keeping across the runtime of the mainspring. In the Constant Escapement, the silicon beam (really thin horizontal, slightly curved line), delivers a very precise impulse each time. Like holding a curved playing card (really easier when you watch the video down the post), which will "flip" position after pushing in the curve, the beam buckles and flips to the other stable position once per impulse. This flip allows one of the 2, 3-toothed escapement wheels, to move ahead. Yes, it's really overly complex, but it IS cool to watch. SJX has a better explanation with some pics of the unusual escapement parts.

Specs on the watch:
GP Ref. 93500-53-131-BA6C

• Case: 18kt white gold, 48mm x 14.6mm, water resistant to 30 meters.
• Movement: GP Cal. MVT-009100-0007
  • 28 jewels
  • 21,600 vph
  • power reserve of one week (7 days 168 hours), with linear display at 9 o'clock
• MSRP: about 100,000 CHF

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Another entry in their jewel-encrusted partnership, Boucheron(previously mentioned) and Girard-Perregaux(previously mentioned) have released a pair of watches, the Cypris Tourbillons. Building on GP's signature triple-bridge tourbillon movement (previously seen), Boucheron has created a matched pair of swan-shaped watches.

For the black swan, more than 1380 black spinels, blue and violet sapphires cover the wings and body, and pieces of black onyx and coral are polished and shaped to the beak.

For the partner white swan, the wings and body are set with more then 700 more diamonds mixed with 100 blue sapphires and the beak is a mirror-image of that of the black swan.

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Two more special editions from Richard Mille(previously mentioned).

The first was for Jackie Chan's Dragon Heart Foundation. This charity builds schools for needy children all across China, and the watch was auctioned as a fund raiser. The piece, in white gold with 'carbon nanofibre' baseplate, has the logo of the Dragon Heart Foundation on the dial in rainbow-anodized titanium. The movement is the usual RM Tourbillon with both Reserve de Marche and torque indicators and their odd, overly-thoughtout mode dial, instead of pulling the crown out to set the time, you click the button once to wind, once more to set the time, and a third time to go back to "neutral". If you were interested, this piece sold at auction for 5.5 million RMB, or about $860,000.

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The other special edition from the past month was the RM051 Phoenix, specially designed for Michelle Yeoh. This is a variant of the RM019 with the Celtic Knot motif on the dial replaced with a stylized phoenix, and the case (even the crown) covered in diamonds for some reason. If they had just put diamonds on the bird, maybe the tiny hour indicators, it would have been a interesting, and flashy, watch with a good horological pedigree, something lacking in the current Women Like Crystals (diamonds covering a quartz movement) marketplace. Instead they decided to cover every square mm of the front and sides with diamonds, even the crown is set with white and black ones.

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In case you're curious, the "plain" RM019 retails for about $650,000 so I'd put this one about $1.1 Million.

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Nobody makes ladies watches like Richard Mille (Previously Mentioned), they tend to fall in the "at least they are not like all the other ladies watches" category.  Rarely are they seen in reality, usually just in super-unreal looking press photos, so this shot of the RM026 in the flesh was intriguing.



(From Amnh over at thePurists)


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Earlier this month Boucheron presented their newest collection, Dolce Riviera, at their main Paris boutique, in the Place Vendome.  The collection is intended to reflect the sweetness of the French Riviera, and each of the families is named for one of the famous beaches on the Mediterranean coast: Isola Bella, Capriccioli, Beau Rivage, Paraggi and Aiguebelle. As with so many of the Haut Joaillerie collections, there's always a theme and it usually has only a tangential connection to the actual design

Bracelet from the Capriccioli family, set with cabuchoned emeralds as well as faceted sapphires and diamonds. The bracelet centers on a large cabuchoned sapphire	Aiguebelle ring, centered on a large (black?) opal and surrounded with blue and purple sapphires and emeralds.
A ring from the Isola Bella collection, several colors of sapphires set into yellow gold. This one is very reminiscent of the colors in several of the Cirque du Soliel necklaces they released in late 2009	One of a strange pair of seemingly renaissance-inspired earrings named Paraggi. It is cultured pearls, turquoise and coral (don't try to bring those outside the EU!) set in 18k Rose gold

By far my favorite pieces from the collection are these two unstructured necklaces.

First is the Isola Bella necklace from which the right side can be detached to make a shorter necklace and a matching bracelet. The press release doesn't give materials, but I would guess that at least the pink stones, and possibly the green as well, are tourmaline and the yellows are sapphires to match the ring (above) in the same family	My favorite piece is the Beau Rivage necklace. Centering on a emerald cabochon, it is 18k white gold set with blue sapphire beads and faceted diamonds. Like the Isola Bella piece and most of the other necklaces, this one is convertable, with the set emerald removable to wear as a broach

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This is just a sample of the collection, each of the families has a bracelet, necklace, ring, pair of earrings and some add in a watch. There are plenty more pictures over at The Jewelry Editor, as well as a short video from the opening party in Paris.

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Ikepod is a strange little watch company which has always been focused more on the design side of the watch industry, using reliable but not interesting movements.  They have worked in partnership with industrial designer Marc Newson (previously mentioned) for a while now, but their release of his hourglass at Baselworld 2011 gave them quite a bit of positive publicity.

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Those are the basic models, the larger one times abotu one hour and costs about $30k, while the smaller model is about 1/2 the price and times 10 minutes.  Both are hand-blown from rather thick (3mm) borosilicate glass and use tiny steel balls, plated with nickel, copper, gold or something else for color, for timing.  According to promotional materials the large model contains approximately 1.3million balls. 

Their video of the production is stunning


For the 2011 Only Watch auction, they've made a unique model with red glass.  I was a bit disappointed to read that the red is a paint, rather then inherent in the glass, but that in no way detracts from the dramatic look



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In live shots the clarity and intensity of the red color, probably somehow related to the flag of Monaco, is much more obvious


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Though I don't particularly care that Boucheron (mentioned before) has opened a boutique in Beijing, I do wish to use that news to present the Bagha ring, from their Cabinet of Curiosities collection (mentioned before).  Constructed of rose gold and pavee set with black and yellow sapphires and white diamonds, it features cabochon emerald eyes and a large oval-cut red spinel center stone.



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See CIJ International Jewelry for the story about Beijing

Aure Atika, a random model. wearing a Boucheron Python bracelet, built of white gold and set with sapphires, diamonds and tsavorites.  For those who care, the dress is by Gucci


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Helen Mirren was loaned a massive Chopard collar, featuring a large polished Amethyst and pavee set with diamonds.  The gray dress is by Ellie Saab, who must be doing better then her namesake.


And a closeup, slightly blurry, of the jewels

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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

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.

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.

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.

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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Valérie Danenberg* comes to the world of jewelry honestly, her father is an art dealer and her mother sells antique jewelry in the Louvre des Antiquaires in Paris.  After getting a diploma from the Institut National de Gemmologie, and spending 20 years selling antique jewelry, she has recently opened a boutique on the Left Bank selling her own designs.

From this initial collection come a pair of pieces entitled "Beauty and the Beast" (oddly enough the press release has the name in English, despite the text being entirely French otherwise).  The ring is yellow gold set with rubies, diamonds and tzavorites (a type of bright green Garnet), while the necklace is rose gold and silver set with tzavorites(the eyes) and garnets (the dark-red of the antlers).  Frankly the necklace looks like a prop from some sort of Deal-with-the-Devil movie, but perhaps that's just me...it might look less malevolent on someone.

The rest of the collection consists of three pairs of earrings. The so-called Monnaie du Pape (Pope's Money) and Summer Dream consist of the same filigree pattern overlaid on a semi-precious background, mother-of-pearl in the case of the Pope, turquoise for Summer. The use of the design, offcentered and asymmetrically cut off is quite interesting, though the names seem to have little relation to the design. The final pair is a nameless feather design, quite reminiscent of Art deco designs such as Boucheron (see a feather design) or more probably Lalique, as Valérie's mother collects their work.

Monnaie du Pape	Summer Dream

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* Her website seems to be down for a redesign at the moment