by Carol Besler
In an era when luxury watch branding is all about differentiation, the brands with the strongest heritage have the advantage. From diving and driving to automatons to tourbillons, company archives hold the secrets to the most authentic expressions of a brand’s modern identity. In Tiffany’s case, that heritage is all about diamonds, gemstones and great jewelry design. But it’s also about watchmaking, surprisingly. It’s new collections, particularly this year’s paillonné Enamel watch and Tiffany Timer, balance those worlds with aplomb.
Watch executive Nicolas Beau joined the company as vice-president of horlogerie in 2021 after 20 years at Chanel, and in that short time, he has carved out one of luxury watchmaking’s most authentic identities. He did it by simply bringing to life what was there all along, a rich heritage. Tiffany & Co.’s archives were a sleeping giant, waiting to be stirred. They have been a direct inspiration for the company’s jewelry collections for years, and now they’re breathing new life into watch designs. The horology department has harnessed them to produce seven collections in the two-and-a-half years since Beau began his tenure.
Most of these new creations are directly inspired by jewelry designs and diamond cuts, particularly the Bird on a Rock motif from the work of Tiffany’s famous in-house designer, Jean Schlumberger, along with the special diamond cuts for which Tiffany is renowned. But the archives hold other surprises. “When you discover the archives, you realize that Tiffany was once one of the top actors in watchmaking, and then it fell asleep for 30 years,” says Beau. In 1866, Tiffany introduced the Tiffany & Co. Timing watch, a pocket watch with a stop watch function. Two years later, it was renamed the Tiffany Timer. In 1874, it opened a full watch manufacture, producing timepieces with various complications, including chronographs and calendar watches, and receiving patents for advances in watch movements and hand settings, among other innovations.
Beau has no idea why the company’s focus eventually veered away from the watch segment, but he speculates, “Maybe it was just because the company was no longer being run by the founders. It was private owners from different backgrounds,” he says. “And maybe they didn't understand the strength of the brand or its potential as a watch producer, especially in this part of the world (America, where it was founded in 1837 by Charles Lewis Tiffany). But since the brand’s acquisition by LVMH in 2021, we have become very sensitive to history, to heritage. For Mr. [Bernard] Arnault, it was a natural thing to bring back watches to where they should be.”
The archives exist not only on paper in the form of sales records, drawings and photographs, but as a museum collection of more than 6,000 pieces, including 300 watches. “These pieces are not for sale,” says Cristina Vignone, director of the Tiffany archives. “They're maintained as a museum-quality collection for our company. They serve to inspire our designers and we look to them to help tell our story.”
The paillonné Enamel watch is a perfect representation of that endeavor. It reinterprets one of the most important designs of the Jean Schlumberger era, his Croisillon paillonné enamel bangles. Introduced in 1962, the boldly colored bangles, often worn in stacks, remain a best-seller more than 60 years later. On the watch, the Croisillon is interpreted as a rotating chapter ring that circles the diamond-pavé dial. It is made by hand in the same way the bracelet is created, a process that involves adhering gold or silver leaf onto a curved base that is then painted over with translucent colored enamel and fired multiple times. The ring is overlayed with 12 stations of cross-stitched gold threads, alternating with pairs of straight stitches, a signature of the Schlumberger bracelets. The stitching motif was inspired by the designer’s background as the scion of a prominent family of textile manufacturers in Alsace, France.
The rotating paillonné rings are enameled in either the familiar, bright Tiffany blue or a glowing white, the two most popular bracelet colors, but other colors are likely to follow or can be created as custom orders. The dial and case are set with 613 diamonds, totaling over 4 carats. A third variation is set with 1,236 diamonds totaling 8.38 carats, including 4.48 carats on the bracelet (price on request). The 36mm case is white gold (for the blue ring), priced at US$147,000, or yellow gold (for the white ring), priced at $145,000. Alligator straps match the rings.
The caseback is engraved in a sunburst pattern inspired by Schlumberger’s Floral Arrows brooch and set with 14 diamonds. The movement is quartz, and for aesthetic reasons, there is no crown. The time is set on the caseback by using an elegant tool made of twisted sterling silver, set with an aquamarine cabochon.
The Tiffany Timer claps back at critics who dismiss Tiffany’s emerging watch division as being overly focused on jewelry watches. It contains one of the most elite movements in all of watchmaking, the El Primero 400 chronograph caliber, made by sister LVMH brand Zenith. It’s a modernized version of Zenith’s famous 1960s high-frequency chronograph, beating at 36,000 vph, and represents one of the century’s greatest advances in watchmaking. Also boosting its authenticity is the fact that it is not the brand’s first chronograph, the original Tiffany Timer having been launched in 1866.
The modern version resembles the classic aesthetic of its predecessor, a minimalist look that meshes with today’s neo-vintage design preference. But it honors the Tiffany brand that has evolved since the 1866 original, including its status as a top jeweler. The dial is set with baguette diamonds as hour markers, a nod to Tiffany’s heritage as a diamond company. The crown is a round-brilliant cut diamond, set with the same six-prong seat that cradles a Tiffany engagement ring. The movement is customized to incorporate a model of Schlumberger’s Bird on a Rock motif on the rotor, with the rest of the visible movement given a rhodium plating to make the gold bird stand out.
Above all, the dial is the same lush, Tiffany blue as some of the jewelry watches, the result of 15 layers of lacquer. Notably, it’s the same robin’s egg blue as the Tiffany Nautilus, the famous special-edition, double-signed Patek Philippe Ref.5711. Patek Philippe released a limited edition of 170 pieces in 2021 to celebrate its 170-year partnership with Tiffany. One was held back to be auctioned by Phillips for charity, famously fetching $6.5 million in 2022. The retail price was $50,000.
So, is the Tiffany Timer a man’s watch or a woman’s watch? That was the question debated following its release in January. “We are not even considering masculinity or femininity,” says Beau. “We are making a jeweler's chronograph. Because it is an instrument, it might be perceived as more masculine, but we do it as a jeweler. It can be either masculine or feminine. If you put things in boxes like that, it kills creativity. So you don't think ‘I'm going to make a watch for women or make a watch for a man.’ If you think like that, you're just going to make something that already exists.”
The Tiffany Timer, with a platinum case, was limited to 60 pieces, all sold now, at $55,000 each. Of course, we hope other series will follow and that this is just the beginning of many other horological treasures to follow. These are early days in the rebirth of Tiffany’s high-watchmaking division. “The bird on the rock motif on the rotor is going to be definitely a signature of our watches going forward,” hints Beau. “And working with Zenith is going to be an ongoing collaboration, with different movements exclusive to Tiffany.”
