It may look like a movie prop; the kind of over-the-top, multi-diamond studded watch that might be stolen in The Pink Panther in order to be recovered by bumbling Inspector Jacques Clouseau. But at 160 carats, this is no chunk of costume paste, it's the real thing.
The exorbitantly expensive Kallania timepiece arrived in Hong Kong this month. Studded with 186 emerald-cut diamonds, Vacheron Constantin, one of the world's oldest watchmakers, has created it as a worthy successor to the renowned Kallista ("most beautiful" in Greek), which was designed in 1977 by artist Raymond Moretti and featured 118 diamonds, weighing 130 carats, with a US$9 million price tag.
Thirty-plus years later comes Kallania, the long-awaited sequel. This dazzling dilettante has already made waves in the watchmaking world and retail price this time around is HK$76.8m.
But is it a watch or a jewel? A shiny bracelet that tells time? It's debatable, especially since it won the Best Jewellery Watch award at the Vogue Jewels Awards 2009 in Madrid, Spain. The Kallania made its debut in January 2009 at the Salon International de la Haute Horlogerie (SIHH) exhibition, crafted entirely from 18-carat white gold and set with 32 emerald-cut diamonds. The bracelet alone is 18-carat white gold, set with 136 emerald-cut diamonds.
For all its glamour and aesthetic appeal, this timepiece is technically exquisite as well. Water-resistant and mechanical, the manual-winding watch establishes a new world benchmark in the number of carats that have been perfectly aligned and facets meticulously polished to achieve a maximum clarity of reflected light. Apart from the bling factor, this piece is also driven by the world's thinnest mechanical movement, the 1003 calibre, developed by Vacheron Constantin, and stamped with the prestigious Hallmark of Geneva.
By P.Ramakrishnan
(ramakrishnanp@hotmail.com)
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