When the Haute Horlogerie takes up virtual reality
The Fédération de la Haute Horlogerie brought together prestigious maisons to show an unusual luxury exhibition at the Galeries Lafayette.
One display cabinet for each maison shows vintage signature pieces that are no longer for sale, next to the contemporary watch, with enhanced functionalities. The creativity is astonishing: dial with off-center display or retrograde displays of the seconds, skeleton watch with visible mechanisms or extra-flat jewel wrist watch, rallye-timer with accuracy of one hundredth of a second, dial showing the phases of the moon completed by a perpetual calendar, nothing is impossible, until the watch with a large complication of different interconnected dials.
To give examples of the exceptional comfort of the mechanical complications, the public is invited to live three exotic adventures of virtual reality: fly a Grumman F6F-5 Hellcat in the 50s, be chief engineer of an English authentic steam train of the skipper of a three-masted ship, and discover a mysterious island, with the help of instruments.
Baume & Mercier, IWC, Jaeger-Lecoultre, Montblanc, Panerai, Piaget, Roger Dubuis et Vacheron Constantin - © photos
