Coming on Strong
Forget charming women merely with diamonds. Watchmakers seek the hand of the fairer sex this year with mechanical timepieces and complications that appeal to their intellect and emotions. Karishma Tulsidas reports on this burgeoning trend
t’s official, ladies: it’s finally your turn to bask in the spotlight as watchmakers are now focusing on discovering what makes you tick. Of course, if we trace it back to the beginnings, the first wristwatches were made for women (while men cradled their pocket watches). In 1810, Breguet mounted a repeater watch on a wristlet for the Queen of Naples, while almost 60 years later Patek Philippe made a wristwatch for the Countess Koscowicz of Hungary. At that time, watches for women were considered ornamental accessories, and they came decorated with engraving, enamelling and precious stones. That drove the demand for minute movements that would fit into dainty timepieces; in 1929, Jaeger-lecoultre assembled the world’s smallest movement, the Calibre 101, that weighed a mere 1g. Janek Deleskiewicz, artistic and design director for the brand, says that thousands of young men perished on the battlefield postWorld War I, and women were required to take up jobs and positions of power. Hence, Swiss watchmakers such as Omega, JaegerLecoultre, Piaget and Audemars Piguet concentrated their efforts on crafting delicate and elegant watches for the fairer sex. By the time the Quartz Revolution of the 1970s waned, mechanical watches, which saw a revival in the 1990s, was a luxury