THE JOURNAL
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Best Of Watches & Wonders 2020: The Style Icons
Words by Chris Hall
6 October 2020
Sometimes it’s OK to focus on form rather than function. Not that the watches listed here have any deficiency in the mechanical stakes – all are superbly specced – but their raison d’être is to fulfil the stylistic potential of that small space on your wrist. The interplay of colour and texture, line and shape, is a precise balance for designers in such a tightly defined canvas. We’ve picked five watches that really caught our eye, be it for a knowing take on a 1980s glamour icon or an elegant revision to a more classical style.
01.
Cartier Santos
No one makes watches quite like Cartier. The maison is renowned for its use of contrasting shapes and intricate geometrical designs. The Santos of the 1980s was at its most iconic in two-tone steel and gold with contrasting rivets. This new model riffs playfully on the same template, but in steel and rubber.
02.
Vacheron Constantin Fiftysix Calendar
As a traditional watchmaker of the highest regard, Vacheron Constantin tends to play it safe, but in bringing a rich chocolate-brown dial to the Fiftysix, especially combined with the rose-gold case and dark blue of the moon phase, it has landed on a look that, although by no means out there, is emphatically fresh for a heritage manufacture.
03.
Piaget Polo
Serving as a timely reminder that Piaget has a strong stake in the stainless steel sports-luxe watch market, this new Polo moves the needle slightly towards the luxe end of the equation with a vivid green dial and well-judged gold accents. Another child of the 1980s, it proves the decade is well and truly back.
04.
Jaeger-LeCoultre Master Control Memovox
Unlike some on this list, the Memovox’s functional abilities are also crucial to its design appeal. The inner rotating disc with its subtle arrowhead alarm time indicator, controlled by the second crown at four o’clock, remains the most elegant approach to the alarm wristwatch genre.
05.
Girard-Perregaux 1966 Infinity Edition
The 1966 Infinity Edition is an object lesson in the importance of dial design – a glossy circle of black onyx, painstakingly cut and polished, with a luxurious mixture of gold and rhodium dial furniture, is fundamental to the watch’s success as a wholeheartedly formal timepiece – something rare, but welcome, in today’s market.
