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The Making of Vacheron Constantin Le Masque (Mask) Watch

Four years ago in 2005, VACHERON CONSTANTIN celebrated 250 years of uninterrupted history. It was a unique and jubilee event in the history of watchmaking as the GENEVA-based manufacturer expressed the extent of their mastery of horological art by performing feats which is pushed the limits of possibility. After touring with pride to the past, VACHERON CONSTANTIN has resumed its march to secure the future, continuously seeking the extraordinary. The challenges for years to come incorporate surprise, creativity and enchantment.

Watchmaking is an art of repetition and excess. How else can one go on creating surprises? Thanks to one of its founders François Constantin whose name and reputation intrinsically linked to the addition. The Ambassador Emeritus, a tireless traveler, he traveled around the world in the hazardous conditions to uphold the company’s watchmaking know-how on other continents. He was already surveying opportunities in China in 1820, and the first watches of VACHERON CONSTANTIN crossed the Atlantic in 1833. Very early on, they understood the need to have a foothold in the new world and had opened a subsidiary in New York and Brazil around 1840, as well as another in India a decade later.

Can a timepiece be a cultural bridge between nations?

Both the company’s founder believed so. In 2007, the company has felt the need to pay tribute to the man when he verges on the sublime. It was a long journey that led the watchmakers through time and space, seeking the man’s roots and considering one of the most beautiful expressions of his soul.

Three years, Twelve Masks, and Three hundred exceptional timepieces

What would be the best subject to evoke the human experience? The designers and manufacture’s master watchmaker have considered several possibilities. The idea of masks has become very clear then. Geneva has the immense opportunity to own one of the finest museums of primitive art that is:  THE BARBIER-MUELLER MUSEUM. This proximity has lead to the selection of Vacheron Constantin’s The Métiers d’Art “Les Masques” collection. It’s a reflection on the near and far, the past, present and future, and eternal recommencement.

However, one obstacle remained: to convince the museum and support this idea. Would it be agree to lend its treasures for many months to see them featured on the dial of a watch collection? It was during the lunch, PAUL BARBIER-MUELLER and VACHERON CONSTANTIN team - led by its Director General JUAN-CARLOS TORRES, shared the common passion for beautiful things. That was enough to convince of the beauty and relevance of the project.

And the rest was a horological magic and the commitment of a team to exceed the limits of possibility. Twelve masks of the Barbier-Mueller collection were selected to be reproduced or small scaled. They rest in the heart of the majestic face of each timepiece in a collection that spans two thousand years and four continents.

Knowing the value of time, VACHERON CONSTANTIN respected the time needed to create such exceptional pieces. It took many months to develop the first of all to perfect the movement, and then the techniques that have enabled the master craftsmen to reproduce these works of art in miniature; the time of questioning, reflection and invention.

A collection is a matter of time. That is why the METIERS D’ART “LES MASQUES” COLLECTION is a story that has unfurled over time. Every year for three years – 2007 to 2009 – a set of four new masks has been presented in a limited series of 25 pieces.

A collection of the 12 timepieces reproducing 12 masks – from the limited edition of 300 excellent watches – is unveiled at the METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART in NEW YORK at an exhibition supported by Vacheron Constantin, entitled “A Legacy of Collecting: African and Oceanic Art from the Barbier-Mueller Museum, Geneva” in tribute to Jean Paul Barbier-Mueller.

Vacheron Constantin Tribal Mask Watches 2009 - Metiers d’Art Les Masques

Vacheron Constantin Metiers d’Art Les Masques 2008 Tribal Mask Watches:
Japan, Gabon, Mexico, Papua New Guinea

Vacheron Constantin Les Masques 2007: Indonesia, Alaska, China, Congo Tribal Mask Watches

A work of Art in miniature

Each watches has manufacturer’s winding automatic CALIBRE 2460G4 MOVEMENT which was stamped the prestigious Hallmark of Geneva (Poinçon de Genève). Equipped with a very special movement, this watch shows time without any hands: by means of a set of wheels and gears, four discs in windows - hours, minutes, day and date – leaving the center of the dial empty so that the artisans can give free rein to their creativity.

The movement has been completely redesigned to accommodate the masks, even if the time is the raison d’être, the mask is the main subject and need to be highlighted. The team of designers took the idea of virtually concealing the movement. Thanks to a clever set of transparency technique and specially-treated glass, one would think the masks are floating. Each sapphire crystal has a different tint, produced by a unique metallization process to play with the color of each mask. The effect is surprising: the miniature sculpture seems within reach, a silent guardian of ancestral secrets.

Finally, we had all MICHEL BUTOR’s talent to give voice, if not life, to the masks. On the sapphire dial in letters of gold, His magnificent words, short poems in prose dedicated to each mask, circle the sapphire dial in letters of gold. His sentences follow a spiral that seems to have neither beginning nor end, a mysterious message that can only be read under a specific angle of light. This effect is produced by vacuum coating, a sophisticated technology where in which gold letters are sprayed on a sapphire crystal. Thanks to its multiple plays of light and transparency, the watch has its secrets that it will only ever share with its owner.

The making of Tribal Mask Watch by Vacheron Constantin’s Team of Designers

| Complete Set |

| First Set - 2007 | | Second Set: 2008 | | Third Set: 2009 |

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