highlights


It’s chic... It’s fashionable… It’s bling …

May 2005


Recently, a French television network broadcast a show on the young, blond heir to Austria’s Swarovski factories. The King of Crystal had a permanent smile on his face. That is understandable. His sparkling stones envelop everything, from jeans to watches, including unlikely other incrustations reminiscent of a car’s hubcaps glittering in a blaze of colour.
In the watch world, crystals share the spotlight with real diamonds on the dials and cases that have now ‘blown up’ in size. These oversized timepieces are even larger than the big wrists of the self-declared spokespeople for the hip hop movement. (To learn more about bling, see Malcolm Lakin’s Freely Speaking column on the last page.)
This is an example of total ostentation. We have already seen it in the past during periods of absolute extravagance. But, what will remain of this current wave, as with all waves, after it recedesı
It is hard to say. What is certain, on the other hand, and even paradoxical from many points of view, is that the bling wave can be credited, at least, with attracting attention to watchmaking. It has made the timepiece a fashionable product in circles that up to now never gave it much thought.
At a time of the cell phone, the bling watch, even when equipped with the most refined movement, is not really about telling time. Being a watch is only a pretext for wearing it.
Is this playful trend signalling the end of an eraı The end of the era of usefulnessı A sign of the times, we will soon be able to download onto our cell phones images of the dials of large prestigious watches. These are ‘functional’ images that can tell the exact time.
The watch becomes nothing more than an image. Its reality dissolves in its virtual presence, even if, worn on the wrist, it weighs a lot.


Intro

THE FIVE TIME ZONE WATCH by Jacob & Co.
3 versions of the fashionable diamond-set bling timepiece. Stainless steel and 18 carat gold cases (47 mm) equipped with 5 ETA movements, Russian-cut diamonds, water-resistant to 100 metres. Swiss Made.



Source: April-May 2005 Issue

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