It takes more than 500 hours of hand-crafted work to create each dial.
The Métiers d’Art Villes Lumières collection by Vacheron Constantin is the fruit of a 2013 partnership with the Paris-based Japanese artist Yoko Imaï.
The winner of the Montblanc Cultural Foundation's contemporary art prize caught the attention of Vacheron Constantin's Artistic Director, Christian Selmoni — the name behind the manufacture’s Métiers d’Art and Les Cabinotiers artistic workshops.
Selmoni believed Imaï’s unusual artistic technique of pairing calligraphy ink with precious powder would help him bring his idea to life: illustrating the lights of nocturnal cityscapes on a watch dial. The same birds-eye view of a metropolis that passengers see on approach before landing.
The resulting lines that appear on watch dials in the Métiers d’Art Villes Lumières series have a deceptive simplicity, similar to the minimalism of calligraphy.
More than 500 hours of work goes into creating each dial, involving the gradual application of 30,000 dots, which measure between 9 to 15 microns in size and are made of powdered diamonds, platinum and gold.
This artistic stage follows a long research and trial period to study aerial images of cities and their changing rhythms — the image on the watch dials has to be as realistic as possible. And unlike real photographs, the artist can influence how the dial will look depending on how rays of light fall on the surface.
Vacheron Constantin Métiers d’Art Villes Lumières Sydney
Métiers d’Art Villes Lumières has turned into a real tour guide over the past years. Beginning with Geneva, the watchmaker has added aerial nocturnal panoramas of Paris, New York, Beijing and Tokyo to the collection.
For the year 2023, Sydney by night is being welcomed into the collection. The lights of sights in Australia's most populous city have been transferred to the dial.
The Sydney Opera House, the historic Walsh Bay within Port Jackson and Harbor Bridge, surrounded by the waters of the Pacific Ocean, created using the Grand Feu champlevé enameling technique.
The refined 40-mm white-gold case measures a mere 8.9 mm in height. Turning it over reveals a view which is even capable of surprising watch perfectionists with the highest of expectations.
The transparent caseback allows you to appreciate the finishing on the self-winding Caliber 2460 SC with its peripheral gold oscillating weight.