INTERPLANETARY PERFECTION

24th April 2024

Gucci is hitting new heavenly heights with its latest haute horlogerie collection. Words by Laura McCreddie-Doak.

Anyone casting an eagle eye around the watch choices at this year’s Oscars would have noticed something rather surprising peeking out of Idris Elba’s cuff. Prior to becoming a Gucci ambassador Elba’s watch collection could be categorised as “solid but serious” – IWC Mark XVIII, Cartier Santos, classic yellow gold Rolex Day-Date. However, Elba chose the red carpet to debut a far bolder choice – Gucci’s G-Timeless Planetarium, one of the latest models from its haute horlogerie collection that features a centrally mounted diamond-set star covered tourbillon surrounded by 12 beryl stones representing the twelve signs of the Zodiac that rotate when activated by a button on the case. Definitely not the sort of thing Luther would wear. For the past few years, Gucci has been leaving behind its fashion watch roots and experimenting with complicated watchmaking, albeit with the classic Gucci traits of flamboyance and fun.

“The star is the G-Timeless Planetarium. At its centre is Gucci’s Dancing Hours Flying Tourbillon, whose movement is named after one of our galaxy’s brightest nebulas”

If there is any doubt about Gucci making an entrance in this sphere, it would do well to remember that this fashion house was making watches seriously before Chanel’s Jacques Helleu picked up a pencil. Back in 1972, the same year Maurizio started his ill-fated marriage to Patrizia Reggiani, Gucci decided to start making watches. Rather than give their logo and designs to a third-party supplier, as many fashion brands were to do, Gucci opened an atelier in La Chaux-de-Fonds – where quality control, assembly, and jewellery setting still happens today – and tasked Ticino-based company Fabbrica Quadrani, which Gucci bought in 2013, to make dials and do specialist decorative work. So successful was Gucci’s first foray into timepieces that its Model 2000 earned a spot in the 1978 Guinness Book of World Records for selling over one million watches in just two years. Unfortunately, this being the volatile Gucci family, a series of bad decisions and Maurizio’s extravagance with money led the company to the brink of bankruptcy; something only prevented by Maurizio finally agreeing, in 1993, to sell his 50% stake in Investcorp, who had already acquired 47.8% of the company back in 1988. Watch production during this period tailed off, only to be revived again in the 1990s with production starting again in Switzerland in 1997. For the next (almost) twenty years, Gucci produced nice watches. They referenced the House’s codes – bamboo bezels to mimic the handbag handles, bracelets with the interlocking Gs on them, leather cuffs stamped with the GG monogram. All perfectly fine but nothing to get your wrist, or wallet, out for.

That all changed with Alessandro Michele who took the role of creative director in 2015. Not only did he shake up the clothing side of the brand, but he turned his attention to the watches and jewellery creating bold, brilliant and beautiful creations inspired by everything from nature to skateboard treads. Michele has now left but Gucci’s timepieces are as bold and brilliant as ever and this time they are complicated. The star is the G-Timeless Planetarium. At its centre is Gucci’s Dancing Hours Flying Tourbillon, whose movement the GGC.1976.DS is named after the Orion Nebula NGC 1976, one of our galaxy’s brightest nebulas and visible with the naked eye. Rather than at six o’clock, which is where tourbillons normally sit, this one is in the middle of the dial and set with a diamond-studded star. Surrounding it are twelve precious stones, which, when activated by a start-stop function on the crown spin on themselves in nine seconds, orbiting clockwise around the dial in 90 seconds creating a shifting, tumbling effect as the light refracts off them. For 2023, there are four different iterations of precious stone. The first is set with Ethopian opals, whose milky beauty has a lunar quality. Another brings the majesty of the constellation with four different types of star set with a diamond at their centre; another has a pastel melange of topaz, peridot, amethyst, and Ethopian, while the final version captures the swirling fire-like colours of the Orion Nebula with an otherworldly sunset of contrasting reds: rubies, fire opals, pink tourmaline and mandarin garnet.

It’s not just the Planetarium that has been star-struck, Gucci has updated its gorgeous interpretation of the moonphase with a customisation option. These made-to-order G-Timeless Moonlights can be personalised with your specific time, date, and place of birth. Six gemstones are used to reflect the astral map of the zodiac and birthday planets’ positions, and these are paired with six diamonds set on a rotating rehaut, or outer ring, which spins randomly when you press the crown at two o’clock. Five personal letters can also be etched onto the dial’s inner ring, the oscillating weight can display your personal constellation, and the alligator leather strap is customisable as well. It’s so quintessentially Gucci – witty, a little whimsical, but of exceptional quality.

Gucci’s skeleton tourbillon, which first appeared in last year’s 25H collection, is back in all its architectural glory, but this time there’s the option of a fully baguette-pavé option and one with clever colour pops, including a pink flying tourbillon, purple barrel bridge, visible green bridges, and an electric blue winding system, which can be customised with eight digits on each of its four sides. Or there’s also a fabulous new perpetual calendar 25H if tourbillons are too haute for every day. There’s no escaping the whirlwind on the new G-Timeless Dancing Bees. Michele introduced the bee motif to the brand in his first collection, which some cultures hold to be a sacred insect that bridged the natural world to the underworld, and which, in Rome is the symbol of the Barberini dynasty, who were powerful in the 17th century. These, set on either intense watery turquoise, or intense verdant green opal, tremble and flutter moving when you move to create a dial that thrums with life; a feeling enhanced by the constantly spinning form of the tourbillon at 12 o’clock.

For each of its haute horlogerie collection Gucci has created worlds. Last year it was a magical fairground, a Gucci Wonderland. This year the ever-changing beauty of nature, from the smallest of insects to the unimaginable limitless expanse of the cosmos and at its heart incredible feats of watchmaking – serious timepieces dressed up in seemingly frivolous garb where complications can delight as well as be signifiers of watchmaking prowess. Gucci may have been in his business for 50 years, but these haute collections are the markers of a watchmaker whose exciting new journey has just started. To infinity and beyond!

Gucci watches and jewellery is available from the Gucci Watches and Jewellery boutique at the Argyll Arcade, Glasgow, ROX Newcastle and online.

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