New York meets Geneva

Roberta Naas charts Harry Winston’s rich and varied past in watches – showcasing the brand’s innovative world firsts and high-jewellery masterpieces

You’d be hard-pressed never to have heard of Harry Winston. The son of Ukrainian immigrants, Winston was raised in his father’s small Manhattan jewellery shop, where he displayed an uncanny knack for recognising gemstones. By his early twenties he had already started his own business, and in 1932 he founded his eponymous brand. A darling of wealthy socialites as a result of his innate ability to create gems worthy of royalty, Winston built a monumental and everlasting reputation as the king of diamonds.

After his death in 1978, his sons Ronald and Bruce took the helm and became engaged in a host of battles about the direction of the firm. It was during this time that the brand unveiled its first watches, thanks in good part to Ronald. The Premier collection, still a pillar of the line today, was introduced in 1989, as was the brand’s first Ocean BiRetrograde Perpetual Calendar – a world first created by two master watchmakers, Jean-Marc Wiederrecht and Roger Dubuis.

Unfortunately, much of the brothers’ infighting throughout the 1990s seemed to stall the development of an integrated watch manufacture. Ronald, however, had set his sights on creating exceptional timepieces to rival the brand’s outstanding jewellery. To this end, Maximilian Büsser (later the founder of MB&F), who the brand had hired in 1998, set out to create a truly unique watchmaking project: the Opus series, collaborating with independent watchmakers on visionary concepts and highly-creative watches. The Opus One launched in 2001 and was an immediate success, becoming one of the most talked about launches in modern watchmaking history.

At about this time, Ronald teamed with Fenway Partners and bought his brother out of the company for more than $50 million. A chemical engineer by education, he also started to investigate new alloys for watch cases and, after much research, introduced Zalium, launching the first timepiece made of the zirconium-based material, the Project Z1, in 2004.

Also in 2004, a majority stake in the company was sold to Aber Diamond Mining. The new parent company channelled the funds needed to implement Ronald’s vision of creating in-house watches and, three years later, the Harry Winston watch manufacture was established in Geneva. Then, in January 2013, Swatch Group announced its purchase of the brand. The Group’s chair, Nayla Hayek, took over the helm with a goal of restoring the legendary house to singleownership stability.

Hayek focused her attention on distribution and production, as well as the watch collections, paring down where necessary and creating new lines where she saw a void. She also brought back objets d’art, such as jewelled handbags with tiny clocks on the clasp. Finally, she revisited the Harry Winston archives and studied the man himself in order to use that legendary past to propel the brand into the future.

Today, under her vigilant eye, Harry Winston is rich with watches that rival the brand’s magnificent jewels. This year, it unveiled the highly complicated Histoire de Tourbillon 10 watch with four independent tourbillons, as well as its most recent Project Z watch, a host of exclusive high-jewellery timepieces, and some intriguing art pieces that wouldn’t look out of place in museum vitrines. harrywinston.com

Harry’s son Ronald set his sights on creating exceptional timepieces to rival the brand’s outstanding jewellery

Price on application Shine on: Harry Winston made a name for himself as the king of diamonds

Recalling the colour of the Hope Diamond that Harry Winston donated to the Smithsonian Institution in 1958, this Premier Hypnotic Opal Mosaic Automatic 36mm watch features a shimmering dial with green/ blue insets of iridescent opal. The central vortex is created using sapphires and diamonds. The whitegold case is set with 161 baguette-cut diamonds.

The asymmetrical dial architecture of the Project Z13 reinforces Harry Winston’s codes of balance and harmony. The 42.2mm case is made in Zalium and houses a 278-part mechanical movement. The watch features a moonphase indication and a retrograde date, the red-tipped hand jumping back to ‘1’ as each month passes into the next. Price on application

At once beguiling and breathtaking, the new Ultimate Kaleidoscope is meant to be worn as a pendant. A timepiece, as well as a functioning kaleidoscope of gemstones, its cylinder is bedecked with various cuts of diamonds and gems using a ‘clustering’ technique. Each kaleidoscope is topped with a watch dial. Price on application