Metier d'Art - Creative Craftsmanship - Part 1
Alongside a tendency towards grand complications and the use of hi-tech ceramics in sports/military inspired timepieces, the other major technical trend seen at the first big annual watchmaking rendezvous of 2013 was not purely horological - it was rather a combination of watchmaking expertise and exquisite artisanal skills. At the Salon International de la Haute Horlogerie there were three particular brands that once again excelled in the creative craftsmanship department, contributing decisively to the celebration of the so-called Metiers d'Art with timepieces requiring hundreds of hours of decorative work or featuring dials that took several months to perfect.
The houses of Cartier, Vacheron Constantin and Van Cleef & Arpels have been investing hugely in areas ranging from enamelling to engraving and hiring the best contemporary artisans to create absolute masterpieces. They were the promoters of Metiers d'Art at the Salon International de la Haute Horlogerie - whereas among the myriad of solo exhibitions outside the Palexpo, Bovet showed a similar recognition towards decorative handwork of extraordinary dexterity.
Reviving heritage
The rare crafts known as Metiers d'Art in watchmaking lexicon were highly popular in the 18th and 19th centuries, but are being revived in two quite opposite ways: one involves industrialization with the use of machines to provide cheaper skeletonization and guillochage on the dials, for instance; while the other route is the traditional and only one worthy of the Metiers d'Art label, with high-end brands nurturing older craftsmen and forming new ones capable of perpetuating ancestral techniques that a mere decade ago seemed to be a dying breed… but whose future keeps getting brighter.
To keep such an expertise alive and in the front row of high-end watchmaking, Cartier and Vacheron Constantin have even created their own studios and become custodians of several disciplines. Other companies hire small ateliers and highly talented freelancers to exercise specific artistic skills on unique timepieces or limited editions. Moreover, there has been a wide range of Metiers d'Art featured lately on dials displaying the best of miniaturization - guillochage, marquetry, gem-setting, painting, sculpting and enamelling to name but a few, even though many other specialties may have vanished forever because somehow they were lost in… transition.
In the second part of this series of two articles we will follow four particular brands' novelties in Metiers d'Art.
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