Can you diffuse the concept of time? A new scent-infused timepiece by Vacheron Constantin attempts to do just that. Égérie—The Pleats of Time, is the result of a collaboration between the Swiss watchmaker, Paris-based couturier Yin Yiqing, and Dominique Ropion, the rockstar perfumer who has bottled blockbuster scents such as Paco Rabanne’s Lady Million and insider favourites like Frédéric Malle’s Portrait Of A Lady. “We wanted to create a unique object that would be exceptional in design and symbolic significance,” explains Sandrine Donguy, product and innovation director at the Geneva-based watchmaker.
From the outside, the Égérie Pleats of Time looks like any other watch. It does of course tell the time, with Midas-touched hands moving across a lilac mother-of-pearl dial with a pleated pattern—a nod to Yin’s couture signature—embraced by a diamond bezel. It even displays the moon phases in a charming, star-dotted window between one and three o’clock—all the better to make the most of lunar energy in our life.
But the watch’s essence—figuratively and literally—is in the strap. Here, nanoparticles are woven into the calfskin bracelet, adorned with silk embroidery and mother-of-pearl shards, to diffuse the scent of passing time. So what does time smell like? “To transform the concept of time into a scent, I referred to the sun, our ultimate source of light and warmth, which gives rhythm to our lives, and amethyst, with its deep, time-evo.