Haute couture meets haute horlogerie in Dior’s latest collection

The latest haute horlogerie offerings from luxury maison Dior draw on its haute couture legacy, with feathers, flowers, the baroque architecture of the Paris Opera House, sumptuous fabrics, and feathered petticoats – all dancing their way on to colourful dials that are adorned with scintillating diamonds

In 1947, Monsieur Dior’s collection restored the world’s taste for celebration. International high society revived its hectic calendar of grand dinners, extravagant balls, marriages and coronations. The Maison Dior became their indispensable partner and has remained so ever since. Monsieur Dior’s enchanting dresses transformed each woman into the belle of the ball. A swirl of sumptuous fabrics, organza, taffeta, faille, duchesse satin and brocade, embellished with every fanciful detail; bows, ribbons, pleats, frills, ruffles, crinolines, flounces and flowers bore the promise of unforgettable nights.

The timekeepers of the Dior Grand Bal collection are equipped with an exclusive watchmaking complication, the “Dior Inversé” calibre, featuring a functional oscillating weight placed on top of the dial to recall the swirl of a ball gown. And like the ball gown, this signature movement born from an aesthetic requirement, possesses an endless power of attraction. Meticulously assembled in the Dior watchmaking ateliers, each Dior Grand Bal also enhances a woman’s every gesture.

Dior Grand Bal Opéra

In 2019, the Dior Grand Bal collection plays with couture ornaments to adorn the wrist with fascinating timekeepers. The ten one-of-a-kind Dior Grand Bal Opéra timepieces applaud the magnificence of the Paris Opera House, celebrating its 350th anniversary. In echo of the opulent stage costumes, the dial is adorned for the first time with a rounded-square shape.

Framed by a bezel set with baguette-cut diamonds or snow-set round diamonds, where a ballet of pearls and lacquered gold are evolving, the acts come one after the other to reach a crescendo. One model with an engraved white mother-of-pearl dial makes twenty marquise-cut diamonds dance on the oscillating weight, hemmed with lattice-work, where little gold balls are having fun playing pizzicato. Orchestrated by yellow gold, three timekeepers are partly darkened, provoking contrasts worthy of a vibrato turned heartbeat.

Like the wreaths of gold beads and yellow diamonds, evolving in unison in a line that becomes a joyful frieze of hooks. When pink gold appears on stage, it is woven with a delicate cannage pattern, recalling the seats on the Napoleon III chairs chosen by Monsieur Dior to decorate the Avenue Montaigne boutique. This refinement is extended to the crown set with a rose-cut diamond.

Dior Grand Bal Supernatural

Moving onto the wrist, the silky shades of feathers waltz around the luminescent fires of Australian opals on the ten one-of-a-kind timepieces from the Dior Grand Bal Supernatural collection. Driven by an oscillating weight decorated with twenty-five wild feathers and a case-back revealing a butterfly wing, each timekeeper tells an enchanting tale, born of a virtuoso marriage between feather-making know-how and high horology.

Gathered once a year, the feathers are assembled for ten or so hours, while the cutting of an opal capable of illuminating a 36mm diameter dial requires five days of work. Interlaced with a bezel set with baguette-cut pink sapphires, the bronze feathers converse with the iridescent fires of an Australia Harlequin white opal.

The rosy fires of another opal are proudly escorted by the Sri Lankan peacock whose feathers are spellbindingly geometric, irresistible to the tsavorite garnet set in pink gold. Contrasted with a green fire opal, the velvety shaded colours of the jay feathers attract every eye when they share the dance floor with a magnetic blue fire opal encircled with a halo of matching sapphires.

Dior Grand Bal Wild

Also imagined like a fantastic story, the Dior Grand Bal Wild collection in a limited edition of eighty-eight, is decorated with the blue of the turquoise and the green of the zoisite, whose veining designs a unique Map of Love caressed by deep black feathers, a spectacle mischievously enlivened by a very contemporary denim strap.

Dior Grand Bal Plume

Indispensable to party outfits, feathers also unfurl their panache on two new Dior Grand Bal Plume models, in a limited edition of eighty-eight. An all-white model unveils a lacquered dial woven with gold thread adorned in a veil of immaculate feathers, shimmering with a single row of diamonds. Combined with black feathers, the amber veining of the tiger’s eye becomes bewitching, while the case-back is embellished with leopard spots in a wink and a nod at Mitzah Bricard, Monsieur Dior’s muse.

Dior Grand Bal Miss Dior

Decorated with an oscillating weight that makes a flower blossom, in tribute to the couturier’s love of gardens, in 2019, the Dior Grand Bal Miss Dior collection is enriched with a colourful trio. Poised on engraved mother -of-pearl the blue or green decorations rival for sparkle and shine, just like the incandescent red model on a sun-brushed yellow gold dial.