Technique - Lacquer shines on exceptional timepieces
HH Magazine - February 2010
Certain watchmakers are unswerving in their devotion to the applied arts, to the preservation and promotion of a knowledge that gives Fine Watches their inimitable "flavour." In the past, their attention has focused almost exclusively on enamel, engraving and stone-setting. Now it also encompasses techniques that are little-known in Europe, with Japanese lacquer. Granted, certain models have given us a foretaste of what lacquer can achieve, such as the Cartier Roadster with pink lacquer dial, the black lacquer dials of the Chanel diamond markers, Universal Microrotor UG 101, Rolex Submariner 6538 and Gerald Genta Octo Tourbillon Sunray, or the Atmos Reedition 1930 by Jaeger-LeCoultre, this time with grey lacquer dial, but none explore the full range of possibilities of lacquer as a veritable art form.
"Make time stand out"
As the last Salon International de la Haute Horlogerie revealed, watchmakers' incursions into lacquer are no longer so timid. With their new Les Metiers d'Art - La Symbolique des Laques and Cadrans Extraordinaires - Midnight Extraordinary Japanese Lacquer collections, Vacheron Constantin and Van Cleef & Arpels, respectively, have brilliantly demonstrated the full extent of these techniques, straight from Japan. Van Cleef & Arpels has gone even further in its espousal and called on the Japanese lacquer artist Hakose San to act as master dial maker for the firm.
From his hands come five traditional landscapes, the classical source of inspiration for these artists. They enhance timepieces which, in Van Cleef & Arpel's words, "contrast the discretion and purity of the Midnight case with the exquisite and delicate precision of lacquer work." Says Chief Executive Stanislas de Quercize, "The Cadrans Extraordinaires collections must express all the emotion of the artist's work. If, as Dostoyevsky said, beauty will save the world, these models can help us become better people while making time stand out."»...
VIEW THE VIDeO: VACHERON CONSTANTIN, la symbolique des laques