Complex Beauties

Few companies rival Vacheron Constantin when it comes to producing top-notch grande complications. In 2005, it launched the world’s most complicated wristwatch. That timepiece, named Tour de I’Ile after the historical clock tower in Geneva’s Old Town, was a horological tour de force combining 16 traditional complications spread over two dials and displayed via 11 hands. This year, Vacheron Constantin paid tribute to that monumental timepiece with two unique wristwatches crafted by the master watchmakers and artisans from its greatly revered Ateliers Cabinotiers.

The first of the two is Les Cabinotiers Grande Complication Ornementale with its aubergine dial finished with a satinated sunray effect. It offers a minute repeater with torque display, equation of time, tourbillon, perpetual calendar with sunset and sunrise, power reserve and an array of astronomical complications including a sky chart, equinoxes and solstices, sidereal hours and minutes, the age and phases of the moon, and the seasons and zodiac signs. The second model, Les Cabinotiers Grande Complication Crocodile, also comes with all of these complications, minus the torque display for the striking mechanism.