Results matching “chopard”

From Chopard's (previously mentioned) 2013 Red Carpet collection comes this oak-themed necklace with a diamond and sapphire spider hiding within. The leaves are Tsavorite and most of the rest of the color accents come from fancy-colored diamonds

And a closeup of the spider photographed by Jamie Beck. Unrelated to the jewelry, when people talk about camera lenses having "confusing" or unpleasent bokeh, the background blur of the branch is a good example of what they mean

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The Happy Sport line (previously mentioned) is part of Chopard's (see previous) major watch cash cow, the Happy Diamond line. It's a wide-ranging line, where the recurring motif is the double crystal with the dancing diamonds, or occasionally sapphires, but in a 'sportier' case then the more classical Happy Diamond. The original ones had just brilliant-cut diamonds in the little cylindrical settings -- the secret is that the bezel is taller on the sides then the stone, to keep it from scratching the top crystal and that the bottom is domed to make them less stable, and more prone to dancing across the face. Since then they've gone all over the place, including dancing snowflakes and even a dancing flip-flop on the Happy Beach line.

To celebrate the 20th anniversary of this ostentatiousness they've released a unique anniversary piece, the Happy Sport Diamantissimo!

The case and bracelet is 18kt white gold, set with 958 baguette-cut diamonds and 1,978 brilliant-cut diamonds totaling 65 carats. The diamonds cover the case, front, sides, back and crown, as well as the top and sides of the bracelet, basically any surface that's big enough to take a diamond, has one. The dial has white diamond marquetry in the design of a snowflake, in case the message of "unique" wasn't obvious enough.

I applaud them for using their excellent in-house LUC 1.96 caliber, better then the commodity ETA or Quartz movements which power the majority of the line. To make it fit the pattern the rotor is, of course, set with diamonds. According to Chopard, the piece took 4,500 man hours, including over 1,700 for just setting the diamonds. If you have to ask, it will probably be in the range of 1,300,000 CHF

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The watch industry, like any large industry, has it's own internal awards. These include the the Aguille d'Or(golden hand), given at the annual Grand Prix de l'Horlogerie de Genève, a "for us, by us" type of award, like the Oscars.  Also given are "press" awards by the various magazines, more like the Golden Globes, including the Watch of the Year, given by Montres Passion, the TimeZone Watch of the Year and even the Couture Design Awards, given by a Jewelry industry publication, has a watch category.

So there are plenty of awards for watches, for the best, the newest, the most complex or the most blinged-out watch, but there are no awards for the worst, the most derivative or the least inspired attempt to get a bite of the apple. There is no watch industry analogue to the Golden Raspberry or the Bulwar-Lytton Award for bad fiction. Since we're nearing the end of the 2012 watch model year, by October we'll start hearing pre-release "buzz" for the 2013 Baselworld and SIHH releases, I present my picks for the 2012 Watch Industry Razzies (I was going to come up with some sort of bad acronym to spell out WRIST, but that will have to wait). Note that these are my opinions only and only reflect the high-end of the watch industry.

Words, Names and Press Releases
First, in the realm of letters, we have 3 awards, two for Press-Release rediculousness and one for a product name.

Worst PR Text, Florid Prose Division

Roger Dubuis for the PR for their new Venturer - "For ever walking on a tightrope, always off the beaten path, the boundaries of normality have no meaning in his life. The world of the Venturer is marked by danger and challenge. Adrenalin is his fuel, action is his engine, intelligence and alertness are his protection. This is the world that permeates the new Pulsion Collection from the Genevan watchmaker ROGER DUBUIS. These are timepieces made in his own image: naturally powerful, and effortlessly controlled." (source)

Worst PR Text, Absurdly Overdone Metaphor Division

Stefan Kudoke for his Kudoke White Flower - "Flowers are in need of warmth and light. Therefore it has been planted behind two translucent sapphire glasses like in a greenhouse. The body heat of the wearer warms the sensitive plants.....Due to years of research Stefan Kudoke succeeded in cultivating a flower species that is able to cope without any water. That is why the case is protected against water. The flowers vigor is fertilized by a Swiss automatic winding movement delicately refined in Kudoke manner. " (source)

Worst Acronymic Hash

Christopher Claret - "X-TREM" (source)

X for Experimental
T for Time
R for Research
E for Engineering
M for Mechanism

Watches and Movements
Now onto the technical awards, from cases to watches and onto things kinda like watches, but not really.

Bling!

Piaget for their Emperador Tourbillon Coussin and a case-back pavee set with diamonds (source)

Smallest change to make a new model

Girard Perragaux for their Laureto 3-bridges Tourbillon. They changed replaced clear sapphire bridges with pale blue Spinel ones.

Press Pic (source)	Side by side (source). Since it's nearly impossibly to tell, the one on the right is the old one, with clear bridges. The one on the left has the new blue bridges.

Most I love the 90s

IWC and their weird fixation on Top Gun (source)

As an aside, why is there a "Spitfire Perpetual Calendar" model in the Top Gun Collection?

Middle-finger to the collectors

Beat Haldimann H9. It has neither hour nor minute hand, nor any indication to record the current or the elapsed time. It doesn't even show the beat of the, what one assumes is a, fantastically made and finished movement within. (source)

Special Raspberry of the year, 2012

This year, the Raspberry of the Year goes to the entire industry as an award for pandering, specifically the the Year of the Dragon special editions. Several of these are actually quite fantastic, for example Piaget's sculptural dragon or Jaquet Droz's playful one, but the overall effect of nearly every watch brand (excluding Patek Philippe and Rolex, bien sur) having one, some as minimally "special" as just to have a different engraving, is overwhelmingly mercenary.
(all brand names link to the image source)

Piaget	Grieb & Benzinger	AP	Cartier
Angular Momentum	Parmigiani	Vulcain	IWC 7-day dragon rotor
Kudoke	Jaquet Droz	Chopard	Paul Picot
Tissot

(All the images are from the manufacturer except the AP Dragon, from PuristsPro user Allen and several images by PuristsPro user Z3, the Piaget caseback, the Parmigiani Dragon and the GP Tourbillon comparison)

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Where apparently X can be any noun.  Chopard (mentioned before) has added Happy Fish and Happy Beach pieces to their "Happy" collection, the sprawling set of pieces, begun with the Happy Diamond, with little mobile gems over the dial. 

For summer they have added 3 more pieces to the Happy Sport collection, a Happy Fish and a pair of Happy Beach watches. For both of the Happy Fish watches there are small gem-set fish bouncing across the dial, which is printed with fish. For the Happy Beach, there are gem-set flip-flops (really!)

Happy Fish, a 38mm steel case with a sapphire set in the crown. The movement is Quartz	Happy Fish Gold, 38mm case and small white diamonds on the bezel and lugs

Finally the Happy Beach chronograph, with a 42mm rose-gold case and uni-directional rotating bezel.

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Well I'm sure I've seen worse...
In celebration of the 80th birthday of Mickey Mouse Disney has teamed-up with Chopard to release a series of jewelry and watches.  The Watches are of the usual "happy sport" style, but with a little black-and-white diamond mickey head instead of the fish. It is interesting to see them working with Chopard and not Bulgari since Disney and Gerald Genta had a long relationship for Mickey (and occasionally Goofy) themed watches.

Specs:
The Happy Mickey pendant, in white, rose and yellow
gold set with black, white, yellow and pink diamonds, rubies, onyx
cabochons eyes, with one mobile diamond; on a white gold chain set with
blue and pink sapphires, emeralds, rubies and amethysts. Retail will be £132,00

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I don't like the briolette cut in general, and I REALLY don't like large stones when they're cut that way.  Even considering that, these new pieces, the baisers précieux (precious kiss) collection, by the Parisian jeweler Amal are pretty unattractive. This is a sample, set with a cut phrenite, in yellow gold.

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Keeping with the theme, however, leads to a stone that must be acknowledged as impressive, if nothing else. It's an 85ct pure white diamond, from the same mine as the Koh-I-Noor(106 Ct) in the British Crown Jewels. Chopard hasn't told us what they'll use it for, simply provided this...suggestive press photo

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As part of their 150th birthday, Chopard has release a animal-themed watch collection alongside the jewelry, previously mentioned; All three of these pieces are within the "Happy Diamonds" collection, so the small round diamonds on the dial are actually mobile, free to bounce around the face of the watch. All are quartz (sigh) movement, in 18kt gold cases with white diamonds set in the bezel. The dials are painted mother-of-pearl.

First is the penguin, set with white, black and yellow diamonds. The dial has the rest of his flock as a background.

A polar bear follows, in white gold set entirely in white diamonds except for onyx eyes over a painted ice floe.

Finally a monkey, in white gold set with white diamonds, climbing on a yellow-diamond set branch passes a green leaf. In this one the branch and the monkey separate the three mobile diamonds, each cannot leave its allotted third.
(All pics from TimeZone)


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Chopard celebrates 150 years in the watch and jewelry industry with a collection of animal-themed pieces for both categories.  First in the arena of jewelry

Turtle ring in rose gold, composed of a pear-cut yellow diamond surrounded by brown diamonds, cognac-colored diamonds and yellow diamonds

Antelope earrings in yellow gold set with brown diamonds, yellow diamonds and emeralds

Clownfish plastron necklace in white gold set with 105 carats of moonstones, aquamarines, blue sapphires, pastel blue sapphires, blue topazes, icy quartz, Paraiba tourmalines, pear-cut diamonds, diamonds, amethysts, apatites, chalcedonies and tsavorites

Frog ring in white gold set with emeralds, black diamonds and white diamonds, holding a crown featuring a stunning brilliant-cut yellow diamond entirely surrounded by yellow diamonds

Monkey pendant in white gold set with brown diamonds and tsavorites, on a white gold chain set with briolette-cut rubellites

Stork earrings in white and red gold, set with two briolette-cut kunzites totalling 51 carats, as well as white, black and yellow diamonds

(Pictures from TimeZone)

Bear ring in white-gold, pave set with diamonds and set with sapphire eyes and a onyx nose.

Broach in the form of a bee, yellow and white gold set with black and yellow diamonds.

Seahorse earrings, diamonds set in white gold with onyx accents

Drawing of a frog necklace

Necklace with a pair of monkeys in white and yellow gold, set with emeralds, sapphires, tsavorites, onyx and brown diamonds.

Cat ring, in white gold set with white, yellow, brown and black diamonds
(Pictures from Paris Joaillerie)

It looks like I'll hold off the watches until tomorrow, there's enough here already

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