The 4 most stunning new timepieces at Watches and Wonders 2022: Cartier’s Masse Mystérieuse, Van Cleef & Arpels’ Heures Florales, Jaeger-LeCoultre’s Rendez-Vous Dazzling Star and Grand Seiko’s Kodo

Apr 25 , 2022

Heures Florales Cerisier by Van Cleef & Arpels shows the hours by the number of open flowers. Photo: Van Cleef & Arpels

The latest in Cartier’s ‘mysterious’ watches and clocks line, the Masse Mystérieuse’s entire mechanism – using the Calibre 9801 MC – is skeletonised and compressed into a semicircle

Van Cleef & Arpels has created a dial without hands, with animated painted flowers telling the time instead by opening to reveal diamonds and sapphires

Every watch fair generates a number of pieces that effortlessly rise above the general bubble and froth, notable timepieces from big jewellery and accessory brands, pressured to work just a little harder to establish their credentials.

Here are four watches that brought that wow factor to Watches and Wonders Geneva 2022.

1. Van Cleef & Arpels

Over the years, Van Cleef & Arpels has managed to bring the “wow” with spectacular animated pieces such as the Pont des Amoureux. This year’s highlight is just as striking: a dial with no hands, its mother-of-pearl base bearing painted flowers that open up revealing yellow or white diamonds and pink sapphires. The number of open flowers gives you the hours via a mechanism to open and close the petals took five years to develop. The minutes appear as a retrograde display along the left side of the case. Meanwhile, the cool blue Heures Florales and pink Heures Florales Cerisier were inspired by the Flower Clock imagined by the famous Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus, who in the 18th century invented the Latin system used to this day to classify all organisms.

2. Jaeger-LeCoultre

Jaeger-LeCoultre’s Rendez-Vous Dazzling Star. Photo: Jaeger-LeCoultre

The sense of wonder exuded by the Heures Florales is echoed in Jaeger-LeCoultre’s Rendez-Vous Dazzling Star. The dial of this fine watch is simple: a dark star-spangled sky, framed by a circle of diamonds. Then, suddenly a shooting star crosses the firmament, slow enough to see, a little too fast to watch. It is hypnotic, poetic, even touching. Who wouldn’t make a wish? The watch uses a new automatic Calibre 734.

3. Cartier

The semicircular, skeletonised movement of the Cartier Masse Mystérieuse. Photo: Cartier

Another spectacular timepiece is the latest offspring of Cartier’s “mysterious” watches and clocks. The entire mechanism – using the Calibre 9801 MC – of the Masse Mystérieuse has been skeletonised and pressed into a semicircular shape that serves as a rotor. The concept is simple enough, but it requires a special patented differential to drive the hands and six sapphire crystal disks. It took 10 engineers eight years to complete.

4. Grand Seiko

Finally, if you thought Grand Seiko was in the business of making well-designed watches for normal mortals, think again. The Kodo is a re-engineered version of an earlier concept watch in a 43.8mm platinum and hardened titanium case, running on the new calibre, the 9ST1. The great attraction is the tourbillon and a constant force mechanism on a single axis at 6 o’clock which ensures that the energy from the barrel doesn’t vary as the mainspring winds down. The cherry on top is the sound – an audible downbeat followed by seven legato 16th notes – which explains the name of the piece, as kodo means “heartbeat” in Japanese.