Perfect time is precious

At times an idea is all that is needed, to humour the great thinkers. “Use your time well if you want to have free time”, suggested Benjamin Franklin. In our waste-filled daily lives, even haute horlogerie seems to point the way to perfect time - an increasingly precious commodity. A. Lange & Söhne is celebrating 200 years from the birth of its founder, Ferdinand Adolph Lange, with the ‘1815’, featuring a hand wound L051.1 calibre movement with 188 components in a unique 40 mm honey gold case and grainé silver dial with an extremely fine finish. Audemars Piguet ‘Tourbillon Millenary’, instead, offers an atmosphere enclosed in an oval case of 18-carat rose gold (with a Millenary 2015 tourbillon at its heart), decorated by sparkling baguette-cut diamonds set in a dial of aventurine and gold on a carpet of gems that dazzle with every small movement of the wrist. Pure emotions. Like those of Girard-Perregaux ‘Traveller Large Date, Moon Phases and GMT’ which has a sophisticated and ‘poetic’ design. It features a transparent sapphire dial that encloses/reveals three complications: large date, second time zone, lunar phases and small seconds, on a device with two overlapping disks, inside a steel or rose gold case, incorporated into the automatic GP03300 calibre movement. You’ll be charmed by the charismatic icon that is Hublot, which is celebrating 10 years of ‘Big bangUnico haute joaillerie’ (10 versions at one million dollars each) with a special cutting-edge model of technical setting mastery (invisible, clou de Paris, set on a rail), with 653 baguette-cut diamonds and ‘suspended’ bezel set with inverted trapeziums and counters surrounded by brilliant stones. It is classical beauty combined with technical features that make ‘RendezVous Ivy’ by Jaeger-LeCoultre one of a kind. In the Tourbillon version, arabesques of ivy leaves sit like translucent enamelled lacework on the dial, with two types of guilloche pattern, within a circle of diamonds on the bezel, lugs and crown. Enclosing all this is a 39 mm white gold case with automatic 978 calibre movement and balance wheel in a mobile cage (antigravity), which makes one rotation around its axis per minute. Instead, under the gently domed cover encrusted with three types of diamonds - brilliant-, baguette- and marquise-cut – that trace a flower on the ‘RendezVous Ivy Secret’ model, exuding feminine charm, lies a dial decorated with ivy etched on a background of mother-of-pearl with a double row of chatons making up the bracelet. Seductive. Like the spray of diamonds emanating in 14 rays like a spiral vortex from the ‘heart’ (RM51-02 calibre, hand-wound) located at six o’clock, on the ‘Tourbillon RM 51-02 Diamante Twister’ by Richard Mille, resplendent with its mirrored polishing, diamonds on the crown and case and black and white sapphires. Only 30 are being made. And only 28 for Roger Dubuis -‘ Excalibur Brocéliande’. Loyalty, eternity and the female world, brought together by means of the ivy of the forest of King Arthur with a three-dimensional multi-layer effect, merge to form a bond between the outside and the skeleton movement, demonstrating the extraordinary complexity (in its simplicity) of this model. With case in rose gold and bezel, crown and lugs with diamonds, and red foliage, dotted on ivy twigs of gold thread. It’s back to the future, instead, for Rolex’s ‘Cellini Time with diamonds’, which, by combining elegance and the everlasting requirement of perfection with touches of contemporary style, offers four new versions with precious stones. The minutes are positioned between the centre and the edge, near the sword-shaped faceted hands, in a simple profusion of 18-carat white gold or Everose diamonds. The simple bezel is accompanied by a double bezel with 96 (or 62) diamonds edged by striations surrounding a black-lacquered dial with markers elongated by a further eleven diamonds. For the first time, Paul Picot is presenting a GMT with Gran Feu enamel. It features movement of the 24-hour hand by simply pressing