Endless horizon
As early as its founding in 1755, Vacheron Constantin has been imbued by the spirit of travel. Its founder Francois Constantin expanded this philosophy through a watchmaking business that traversed four continents. Today, within the historical archives of Vacheron Constantin, registers filed under the name Recontre paint a vivid picture of the watchmaker’s globetrotting heritage.
It comes as no surprise that this year witnessed the launch of the new Overseas collection from Vacheron Constantin. The maison’s exuberant spirit of travel is faithfully represented through a series of key considerations. According to its artistic director Christian Selmoni, the idea behind Overseas exists within the current zeitgeist. “The spirit, attitude, tastes and outlook of the present generation is one of casual elegance, curiosity and constant evolution,” he says.
In order to create this connection to 21st-century travellers, Selmoni and his team pushed the envelope in its external conception through a sportier design language as well as a series of interchangeable bracelets and straps. “There was always a risk to come up with a feature such as this,” Selmoni says of the interchangeability of the straps. “It’s not something which is automatically associated with high-end luxury – but it got really interesting when we realised how the user-friendliness and versatility of bracelets and straps enabled owners to adapt their Overseas to their change in dressing throughout the day.”
Practicality also comes in the form of robust new self-winding calibres, which build on Vacheron Constantin’s history of perfecting timepieces for sustained use. Its earlier efforts in anti-magnetism and water-resistance yielded hardy pocket watches centuries ago. Later on, incremental advantages on these technologies were applied on wristwatches which also birthed the first Overseas models two decades ago. The collection of today offers calibre protection against magnetic forces iron ring, while its screwed-down caseback endows it with 50m of water-resistance for the ultra-thin models and 150m for the rest.
The Hallmark of Geneva certification is Vacheron Constantin’s crowning glory on the Overseas’ calibres. This seal of quality, which attests to the provenance, resilience, accuracy and expertise of the calibres, represents a mere 0.1 per cent of all of Switzerland’s output of mechanical timepieces.
A total of 12 references built upon these calibres include an ultra-thin perpetual calendar, a small model with diamonds, a chronograph and the Overseas World Time adorned with a projection map of the continents and oceans.
In June, a cosmopolitan crowd of Vacheron Constantin’s collectors converged in Tokyo to celebrate the launch of the Overseas collection. Also in attendance was photographer Steve McCurry, who had been commissioned by Vacheron Constantin to capture man-made creations in a dozen far- flung places.
On display at the event were spectacular images from the first six destinations of his journey (Japan, China, New York, Mexico, India and the Manufacture Vacheron Constantin in Geneva). The subsequent six were released in August.
McCurry says the results of these imaginative takes begin with his process of photographing. “It begins even before I arrive – thinking about how interesting the photograph can be. What happens is that I arrive, have a minor panic attack and then I start thinking; digging deep and staying patient. Suddenly, you start seeing things happening and in many cases, the pictures start revealing themselves.”
This biting point, for McCurry, is the moment when the exciting observations become keener “and you start coming up with wonderful solutions”. The same view is echoed by Selmoni who says watchmaking shares the same notion as McCurry’s. “Mankind has always needed the functional and beautiful – and this is what we learn and understand through travelling and connecting with different realities.”
