When Vacheron Constantin launched Égérie, its dedicated women’s collection, in 2020, the Swiss watchmaker drew a connection between haute horlogerie and haute couture. Both fields share the quality of handmade exclusivity—echoing the brand’s tagline of ‘one of not many’. That same year, Vacheron Constantin announced the face of the collection.
Not a celebrity, as many brands are wont to do, but an actual, honest-to-goodness couturier in the form of the designer Yin Yiqing. Now, the brand is taking its partnership with Yin to a new level, releasing its first creative collaboration with the designer on Égérie timepieces . There is a completely novel and mind-blowing concept watch and a limited-edition Égérie Moon Phase model that taps into the couturier’s design sensibilities.
The Égérie collection is defined by a number of subtle details. The first, and most obvious, is an off-centre subdial positioned between 12 and three o’clock. It’s deployed, depending on the model, to display either the date or a moonphase complication.
This ring is framed, like the case, numerals and applied indices, in gold. Its neighbouring three o’clock index, in curved type, is neatly cut to accommodate the intersecting ring. But a curious eye might notice that the cabochon moonstone crown is set at two o’clock and the Vacheron Constantin logo is similarly positioned off-centre at eight o’clock.
The subtle effect is a line drawn between the crown, ring and logo o.