Most Wanted

Louis Vuitton’s Great Escape Acte V/The Escape takes its cue from the artist movement Streamline Moderne

As far as aesthetic and artistic movements go, I’m more fascinated layman than expert. Art Nouveau I pretty much have sussed. Art Deco I get – not least because everything I’m most attracted to, be it furniture, textiles, jewellery or vintage fashion – usually hails from that era, as I keep finding out. But Streamline Moderne? That’s a new one for me. It’s also the inspiration behind the sixth and latest high jewelery collection from Louis Vuitton, “Acte V/The Escape”.

As it turns out, Streamline Moderne is what it says on the box – streamlined. Those smooth curves of cars from the 1930s – the long, sweeping lines of their fenders – and the austere, ballooning shape of the Zeppelin, that’s all Streamline Moderne. A lot of the furniture we think of as Mid-Century Modern – the fat, squat chairs with smooth, curved lines, often in gleaming steel and soft leather – are all under the influence of this forward-looking movement. But how to translate this into jewelry?

It’s all in the V. The inverted triangle shape appears across the collection as an accent in onyx, a repeated shape in diamond pave, or diamond shoulders at the outer edges of an enormous opal set as a ring. It’s suggested in the shape of the bold black onyx surround that frames a vivid emerald in the bold “Newport” ring, and the blue enamel shapes surrounded by diamonds, pearls, and equally blue tourmalines in the generous lengths of the Exelsior necklace.

But just as prevalent as this iconic V shape is the tassel – multiple strands of tsavorite beads or pearls suspended as bunches from drop earrings, choker-like diamond necklaces and a cuff. The tassel is synonymous with jewellery of the Art Deco era, but as Acte V/The Escape is the second chapter of a high jewelery collection which started with the Art Deco-inspired first chapter, it makes sense.

And, as always with the luxury French maison, travel is an underlying theme, and in the case of this high jewelery collection, it is in the colours of the materials that travel is evoked – a remarkable grey Burmese sapphire like a sea fog, iridescent Australian opals evoking the colours of the ocean, and the exotic blues of a particular shade of tourmaline. Tahitian pearls, Australian opals, Burmese sapphires – Acte V/The Escape lives up to its name with a round-the-world trip of a collection inspired by a bold aesthetic movement that has me fascinated.

Louis Vuitton www.louisvuitton.com

Grand Design Jaeger-LeCoultre’s Master Grand Tradition Grande Complication takes the notion of a “grande complication” into orbit

Of all the astronomical watches at last month’s SIHH in Geneva (all matters starry emerged as something of a theme at the show), Jaeger-LeCoultre’s rose gold version of its Grande Complication proved that this is still the one watch that takes the idea furthest and in the most unexpected way. An otherwise standard “grande complication”, if such a description is not too strong an oxymoron, Jaeger’s latest offering plays with the variance that can be observed during the year between “mean” time and the time as indicated by the stars.

Of course, there is really no such thing as a conventional grand complication. The term traditionally means a watch that has both perpetual calendar and minute repetition functions (and quite often a chronograph as well) and Jaeger-LeCoultre’s example incorporates the best of the expertise developed over the centuries of watchmaking tradition in La Vallée, long acknowledged as the hotbed of excellence for complicated watches in Switzerland (neighbours in the Vallée de Joux include Audemars Piguet, Breguet, Blancpain and Bulgari as well as specialist ateliers for Patek Philippe, Vacheron Constantin and others).

That means superlative finish and an absolute dedication to refining and improving existing knowledge, as with the Trebuchet hammers developed to give the gongs a more precise strike or the super-light flying tourbillon at the heart of the watch. The tourbillon includes some 73 parts, several key components being printed silicon, weighs less than a gramme thanks to its titanium cage and runs on lubricant-free ceramic ball-bearings at a very modern 4Hz.

The tourbillon is at the heart of the watch’s ability to indicate sidereal; i.e. star time. Thanks to a mechanism below the dial, the tourbillon carriage and the blue lacquer star chart that it sits within rotate counter-clockwise in 23 hours, 56 minutes and 4 seconds, while the hands and sun indicator follow the normal day. A suitably heavenly sound is produced from a specially developed crystal gong that has a square section to optimise the contact with the hammer when it strikes.

While the watch has an almost extreme concentration of tradition and technology packed into it, Jaeger’s preference for relatively conservative case shapes and details allows the functions to take precedence in the design. This watch is set to join the galaxy of stand-out timepieces.

Jaeger-LeCoultre www.jaeger-lecoultre.com