JAZZ HANDS

A new watch collection from Vacheron Constantin riffs on a vintage classic

The 1950s was the decade of jazz and counterculture, Miles Davis and Aldous Huxley, and the making of a watch classic. Designed in 1956, Swiss manufacture Vacheron Constantin’s Reference 6073 dress watch came equipped with an automatic, self-winding movement. It had a water-resistant construction and a distinctively crafted case with elegantly integrated lugs that resembled the arms of a Maltese cross. Some 62 years later, the Maltese emblem appears on the dial, crown and movement of a new Vacheron Constantin collection, the Fiftysix. Taking their cues from the Reference 6073, the watches in the collection, each available in an 18ct pink gold or stainless steel case, sport a modern, cosmopolitan design with handsome, midcentury-inspired detailing: dials feature a double opalinesunburst effect, there is a luminescent coating on the baton-type hands, and the Mississippi alligator strap has a half-maltese-crossshaped buckle. A polished, satin-brushed 22ct openworked rotor, with a frosted-snailed finish and a Maltese cross appliqué, defines the collection’s signature look. Cool, as Miles liked to say.