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Cocktail watches: Their time has come, again

Combining the aesthetics of jewellery with timekeeping

Published: Aug 26, 2017 09:37:27 AM IST
Updated: Aug 26, 2017 09:36:50 AM IST

Cocktail watches: Their time has come, again
Photographs By David Arky; Style Director: Joseph Deacetis; Style Assistant: Maximillian Parkinson; Set Design: Terry Lewis
Centre: 25mm white gold charms by Van Cleef & Arpels ($13,600). Clockwise from top left: 23mm gem-set stainless steel Hermès Cape Cod ($12,650); 21mm white gold and diamonds avenue classic by Harry Winston ($37,600); 26.5mm white gold and diamonds Heures Creatives Heure RomantiQue by Vacheron Constantin ($48,800); 26.7mm stainless steel and diamonds boyfriend tweed black by Chanel ($9,200).

Cocktail watches date back to the early 20th century, when it wasn’t considered proper for ladies to wear a wristwatch. The solution? Disguise it as petite, delicate jewellery. Over the years, the cocktail watch has come in and gone out of vogue, and as cases have gotten slimmer for women (and men too, for that matter), their time has come once more. As for vintage pieces, provenance adds to their allure. In 2011, several of Elizabeth Taylor’s cocktail watches sold at Christie’s—including a gold Piaget—for more than 20 times the presale estimate.

(This story appears in the 01 September, 2017 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)

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