Craftsmanship Becomes a Focus of Jeweled Watches

Jeweled timepieces typically dazzle with sparkling gemstones set on glittering surfaces.

But some brands now are prioritizing artisanal collaborations — so their jeweled watches showcase not just extravagant stones but also the craftsmanship behind the creations. The fusion of diverse skills and materials has been driving the fabrication of intricate jewelry timepieces that combine several métiers d’art, fields where precision and artistry outshine carat weight.

“The trend to integrate artistic crafts into the design of jewelry watches started over a decade ago,” said Corentin Quideau, an independent consultant and global jewelry brand strategist in Paris. “In watchmaking, brand expertise and prestige have shifted from being focused on complex technological complications to a more artistic orientation. Brands like LVMH, Hermès and Chanel, to name a few, actively take over or buy stakes in specialist ateliers, which brings their know-hows into the fold of the brand.”

As a result, he continued, “creativity and ingenuity are where top brands are competing” for the interest of the rising number of wealthy potential buyers.

“Today, with developments in crafts combined with new technologies, it is possible to achieve the most eccentric of ‘creative follies’ in jewelry watchmaking from every perspective — formal, functional, material or stylistic,” Mr. Quideau said, “which is why we see brands focused on creating truly exceptional pieces.”

The trend has been evident inside the workshops of La Fabrique du Temps, Louis Vuitton’s specialist watchmaking center in Geneva, where a team of skilled métiers d’art artisans is dedicated to creating intricately crafted timepieces in-house.

“Since 2023, we have brought in all the expertise we needed to create truly exceptional timepieces,” said Michel Navas, a master watchmaker and co-founder of La Fabrique du Temps. “We have over 200 people in the workshop.”

A recent addition was Dick Steenman and his team, all renowned specialists in miniature sculpture and engraving. Drawing on their skills, La Fabrique du Temps crafted an intricate miniature of a 19th-century horse-drawn delivery carriage, sculpted from a single block of gold, for the dial of Louis Vuitton’s Escale à Asnières pocket watch. (Mr. Steenman also engraved a low-relief image of the same horse and carriage on the caseback.)

Named for the brand’s historic trunk-making workshops in Asnières, outside Paris, the one-of-a-kind 18-karat pink gold pocket watch features a 50-millimeter case set with diamonds weighing a total of more than four carats.

The dial was painted by Anita Porchet, a master enameler, and executed in layers of colored enamel achieved through 20 firings, then topped with a layer of translucent enamel fondant for shine.

The watch is powered by the LFT AU14.01, a manually wound caliber developed by La Fabrique that has 480 components, including a Jacquemart mechanism with seven animations, and a minute repeater that sounds the time with a cathedral gong.

With the push of a slider, the watch’s scene, inspired by an 1887 Louis Vuitton advertisement, comes to life: the miniature horse and carriage, sculpted in low relief, begin to move on the dial. The horse’s legs step left and right, the carriage wheels turn and the driver raises a blue-sleeved arm to whip the horse. On the bed of the carriage, stacks of Louis Vuitton trunks pop open, revealing a jeweled monogram flower.

“The dial is a stage operated by a complex backstage mechanism, a bit like a marionette show,” Mr. Navas said. “It is brought to life through the collaboration of many artisans, from technical watchmakers to gem setters, goldsmiths and enamelers.”

“We wanted this watch to have a theatrical essence,” he said. “Its value is in the spectacle it creates, far beyond the gold and the diamonds.” (The price of the watch, which has been sold to a client, was not disclosed.)

Bees and Butterflies

On the dial of Dior’s Grand Soir Automate Miss Dior, a spectacle of swirling bees and fluttering butterflies unfolds around a flowing Dior gown printed on a mother-of-pearl dial.

The house recently made two one-offs of the watch at its workshops in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland: one in white gold and the other in rose gold, and each set with a total of almost 16 carats of diamonds and yellow and pink sapphires. The house said the timepieces were envisioned as a tribute to the founder’s couture creations, and they are to be unveiled at Dior’s high jewelry presentation this week, during Paris Couture Week.

Each of the jewelry watches features a 38-millimeter case with a gem-set bezel and more than 300 elements affixed to the dial, including miniature gems, hand-engraved gold flowers and gem-set bees and butterflies. Some of them are part of a lively 90-second animation triggered by a pusher on the crown. (Prices on application.)

Chanel’s design studio aimed for realism when it created the Medallion Lion Long Necklace, according to an email from Arnaud Chastaingt, the director of the house’s Watch Creation Studio on Paris’s Place Vendôme.

Using the lost wax technique, a sculptor’s model of the lion’s head and mane was created in 18-karat yellow gold. One side of the 55-millimeter medallion features the lion’s head, while the reverse displays the gem-set mane and an onyx watch dial. A push mechanism at 6 o’clock may be used to adjust the time.

The medallion, which hangs from a twisted yellow gold chain with diamonds, onyx beads and onyx tubes, was made in an edition of 10 (priced at €460,000, or $471,060, each). Each one has a total of 15.48 carats of diamonds.

From design to execution, the piece took two years, and 450 hours of work by 10 artisans. “The challenges were in creating a realistic and expressive lion, in gem-setting the mane where the diamonds are set in gold on cast rails, and in assembling the parts as one seamless piece, without a single visible screw,” Mr. Chastaingt wrote.

“Our objective was to achieve the finest craftsmanship and use exceptional materials to serve the design.”

Van Cleef & Arpels’s artisans have long showcased their skills in decorative objects. A recent example is Onde Mystérieuse, a gem-encrusted box that includes a desk clock, presented in November as part of the house’s latest high jewelry collection, Treasure Island, named after Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1883 novel.

The one-off piece, the house said, required 2,750 hours of work and involved 13 different crafts. (It has been sold; the price was not disclosed.)

Its lid is adorned with fish, sculpted in rose and white gold, that appear to be swimming in a sea of paillonné enamel, a technique that involves inserting a thin leaf of metal between two layers of transparent enamel to achieve a particularly brilliant translucence.

Two detachable jeweled clips — spirals, shaped like seashells — conceal the diamond-pavé dial embedded in the lid. The clock has a Swiss quartz movement with an eight-year battery life and a pusher on the back of the box can be used to set the time.

Van Cleef said it worked with Atelier Sanson, a celebrated specialist in Normandy, France, to craft the two interior compartments, made of ebony and lined in goat leather.

“Gem setters, watchmakers, enamel craftsmen, lapidaries and others all worked together to create this precious piece,” Catherine Rénier, the house’s chief executive, wrote in an email. “It demonstrates the ability of the maison to bring together various crafts to create exceptional objects.”

Playing With Shapes

Experimental forms can make the task of crafting jewelry watches even more complex, a challenge that Cartier faced when it added an architectural twist to a technically innovative jewelry piece in the Reflection de Cartier watch, a gem-set bangle that appeared in stores in September.

The open bangle has what the house called a “face to face” design, introducing a variation of time display: The white dial on the surface of one end of the bangle operates counterclockwise, so the reflection on the mirror-polished surface at the other end of the bangle actually displays the correct time.

The watch has five variations: yellow, rose and white gold, gem-set or plain, including an all-white diamond-set model. (Prices on application.)

“This piece required more than 3,000 hours of development,” Marie-Laure Cérède, Cartier’s watch and jewelry creative director, wrote in an email. “It is a technical feat but also a beautiful tribute to the codes of Cartier, with its inverted setting and its face-to-face bracelet design. It has a dual identity: it is Narcissus looking at his own image in the water, or a simple bangle to wear stacked with other bracelets.”

Chopard also played with shapes with its latest Ice Cube secret watch, presented in November ($452,000). Each one required 800 hours of work to facet and polish 102 18-karat rose gold cubes of different volumes and heights, and then set them with 36 princess-cut diamonds, totaling 8.54 carats.

“The 102 cubes fit together perfectly while staying flexible and comfortable to wear,” Caroline Scheufele, the co-president and artistic director of Chopard, wrote in an email. “There are 1,300 facets, each one polished three times. Imagine the patience to do that.”

“The way the cubes are put together and the hidden dial, it’s all about design and craftsmanship,” Ms. Scheufele wrote. “The diamonds are stunning of course, but this watch is really about the artistry.”