jewelry Archives - Watch Journal

For Your Eyes Only

The name James Taffin de Givenchy carries a lot of weight. Not only is he the nephew of Hubert de Givenchy, the famous French couturier who outfitted screen siren Audrey Hepburn in most of her landmark films, he’s also amassed a loyal following of starlets, all of whom shimmer on the red carpet with his jewels that he seldom loans.

By appointment only, the Jimmy watch, first created over a decade ago by jeweler James de Givenchy as a wristwatch for himself. Photo by Cooper Naitove.

In an age when movie premieres and award shows are the purviews of behemoth jewelry brands, with their hefty marketing dollars, de Givenchy’s company, Taffin, has garnered renown through stealth, accruing a loyal base of customers through word of mouth. He lets his inimitable designs—from intricate clusters to vibrant solitaire stones—shine through. Scarlett Johansson’s engagement ring, comprised of a yellow pear-shaped diamond on a black ceramic setting, is just one example of his discerning taste. The way the juxtaposition of stones and materials play off each other, resulting in a design that is equal parts bold and effervescent, leaves little doubt why his reputation precedes him in certain circles.

These qualities also apply to the under-the-radar watches that he offers to select clients in his salon on Madison Avenue. Titled the Jimmy, de Givenchy first created the timepiece over a decade ago strictly for himself. But after learning about the mechanics behind watchmaking, and the incredible—if painstaking—process it takes to get one made, he decided to debut a collection that would appeal to the men who would visit his appointment-only showroom. To whit, it follows the same attention to detail and one-of-a-kind mindset that was practiced by his uncle.

Each numbered and personalized for the wearer, the Jimmy is an automatic chronograph that features a pronounced rounded case that bubbles up top. Whether it is made of gold, rose gold, titanium, or steel, every watch is water-resistant and has a scratch-proof crystal. The goal for de Givenchy was to create a timepiece that can be worn every day, that is, utilitarian in make but sleek and striking in look. For him, a great watch is akin to automobiles—machines that need to perform, while also having an exterior that turns heads. Indeed, with sensibilities such as this, it’s no wonder why he was once dubbed “the James Bond of the jewelry world.”

Here, de Givenchy explains why his reputation and that of the Jimmy is as close to 007 status as it gets.

Variations of the Jimmy watch, James de Givenchy's passion project — Variations fo the Jimmy watch, James de Givenchy’s timepiece passion project.

When did you first create the Jimmy Watch?

What I mostly do is woman’s jewelry. Watches are a whole different world, but I was curious. In 2005, maybe in 2004, I started working with a friend of mine in France and asked him what it takes to make a man’s watch. He then offered to help with the CAD work. But little did we know there was so much more behind it.

How so?

Well, it’s not just about doing a shape of a watch that you want. We did a wax form first, and I brought the wax with me to Switzerland to the Basel watch fair. There, I realized what it takes. You have to pick a movement to go into a watch. It’s like building your own car. Putting the outside drawing of the design is one thing, but the next step was putting an engine in there. Initially, I thought I was going to make just one—not to sell, but a watch for me. Ultimately, I decided that the best solution, rather than building my own movement, was to work with a company.

Who built your movement?

It’s an ETA movement. And at that time, ETA was just about to be purchased by Swatch. Now, it’s owned by Swatch Group. But when I was starting to look at ETA, it was still a small Swiss company that offered different models of movements that were available for purchase. The idea at that time was to buy one and do a chronograph. I always wanted to do a chronograph. I loved the Bubble Back from Rolex, and I wanted to make a slightly larger version with the same function, but with a bubble top instead of a back. I wanted something that I would wear every day that felt like a modern, practical watch with a very good movement.

Did you find what you were looking for?

Not at first. Every watch that was in the market at that time was those one-inch, thick, complicated movements for men. It was the biggest watches you could find in the 1980s, and everybody was going away from flat watches, which now, apparently, is making a comeback. I didn’t want to have something too big, especially because the watch, the design itself, was supposed to fit the wrist, and be a comfortable, flat watch with a complicated movement. So, after looking at a few, I came across this chronograph movement. We took it and built a CAD model that actually worked for that movement. So everything is done around that single movement.

What makes it elegant? The shape, the material?

It’s really about the balance and the proportions. I wanted to keep the face not too big. When clients come into the shop and they see the watch, they’ll buy it. I have a very small amount, and I’m limited to the number of watches that we made. One of my favorites, actually, is the rose gold with the black dial. It’s a great watch with a deploying buckle. Another favorite is the lizard bands that we have. The band we made can only fit the watch, so we have other bands made specifically in France. That was a complicated thing to actually have a comfortable band with an insert that was not built out of metal but built out of a soft rubber that goes into the watches. It keeps the aerodynamic feeling.

James de Givenchy working with signature coral — Threading signature coral, James de Givenchy working behind the scenes.

You’re known to create pieces with bold color and material, so how does the design of the Jimmy tie into the Taffin brand?

As a man, I don’t wear jewelry. I only wear a watch and a signet ring. Most of the jewelry I design, though large in size, has a purity and simplicity in their forms. And the watches were made with the same idea. I didn’t want anything else than a shape that was pretty, functional, but also masculine. The only thing that jazzes it up a little bit is the ring around each watch. Now, we can offer a personalized color on the rim of any size with a ceramic. Without wanting to be commercial, I always felt that the guy was just gipped at the moment he came into my store. We’ve had cufflinks for a long time, but it is nice to have something else to offer when women asked me if I have something for their husbands.

It just makes sense that you keep these watches rare, and not make more.

I think it was never intended to be a commercial venture. I lost more money in making the watch, but it was never about that. We probably broke even today, but it’s never really about making money. It was really about making something and just enjoying the fact that I have some clients who live with this watch. They just wear them all the time. God forbid something happens to the watch and they bring it back. Though, I have so many movements left that if there’s an issue with a watch, I just put in a brand new movement. I don’t go through trying to fix and to send it to Switzerland. I don’t want them to wait.

So it’s really a passion project?

Yeah, it was about making my own watch. I think over time, in 30 or 40 years, it’ll become a collectible because there were just a few made. That’s good enough for me. I think that’s a great achievement.

A look at the inner workings of The Jimmy watch by James de Givenchy for Taffin — The Jimmy watch by James de Givenchy for Taffin.

PROFILES/STYLE

May 14, 2018June 7, 2018

The Creative Godhead Behind Hollywood’s Must-Have Apple Watch Accessory

by Ben Keeshin

Close to the edge of a rooftop in Tribeca, Harry Bernstein struck a pose, the late afternoon sun filtering through his luxuriant curls.

Beneath him, in stacked glass conference rooms, sat dozens of employees, unaware that their boss was ably modeling a patchwork afghan, selvedge jeans, and a pair of fresh kicks, planted mere inches from the cold, upscale nothingness of undeveloped downtown airspace.

Indigo Patchwork Wrap, Rare Weaves; Indigo Shirt Jacket, Kapital; White T-Shirt, David Michael; Jeans, Double RL; Sneakers, Yeezy; Native American Bolo, vintage; Eyeglasses, Warby Parker

Here’s what they did know: This man on the roof is an advertising godhead, the reason Boost Mobile demanded to know “Where You At?”; the reason Shaquille O’Neal played an improbable jockey for Vitamin Water; the reason kids line up for Supreme drops; and, arguably, the reason influencer marketing exists at all.

Harry “Bee” Bernstein, founder of the groundbreaking digital ad firm Annex 88 (neé, The 88) and current chief creative officer at Havas Worldwide’s flagship New York agency, radiates the excitement of someone coming off two decades of really, really good ideas.

“Let’s have a roof party and just pay the fine! We have good insurance!”

For most corporate heads with “chief” and “officer” in their titles, alfresco photoshoots come as rare as Peter Luger prime rib. But the prolific Bernstein—who does not eat meat—looks nothing like your average exec. He has called his style “streetwear clown,” but that misses the glorious high-taste-hippie of it all, as if Jerry Garcia had lived to see Adidas x Pharrell.

Despite the globally sourced wardrobe of an Afropop Worldwide listener, Bernstein counts a local upbringing—Queens, New York—as the source of his remarkable sensibility.

Apples & Bolos from Bernstein’s personal collection.

“In pre-internet life, what was cool was subculture, the underground and true rarity. Now, the market is about having what everybody else has. You used to want to remain in the subculture. Now everyone wants to be famous … [consumers] buy things because other people have it. Hypebeasts, literally, they buy things on hype.”

So when it came to his own closet, Bernstein, the master of starting and disseminating trends via social channels, wanted something different.

“I want to find a reason to find and to buy things. I had a Rolex that my dad gave me from the 1980s. It’s supreme, but it doesn’t feel like my luxury trope. Whereas what I’m wearing today, there’s a meaning, and a point, and a singularity. I’m searching for singularity, and a unique perspective on the world. That’s my job as Chief Creative Officer. So if I do what everyone else does, I’ll produce what everyone else does.”

One expression of this ethos, worn exclusively by Bernstein and a few high-echelon celebrities, are the turquoise-inlaid, metal-worked bracelet ends that he retrofits to accept an Apple Watch. These two components, from wildly different ends of the American crafts timeline, represent Bernstein’s major preoccupations: the interplay of digital and analog, the singular and the mass produced, the inert and the dazzlingly dynamic. Some of the bracelets use stylized snakes fashioned out of nails, others classic Zuni geometric patterns. Among the stones, the beveled face of a sleeping Apple Watch looks like an enormous black obsidian.

The combination is bizarre, striking, covetable. The backstory is just downright funny. It goes like this: Bernstein, on vacation in Taos, New Mexico, with his fiancée, becomes transfixed by an enormous piece of turquoise, which he promptly purchases for $5,000. It sparks an obsession. Eventually, he gets hooked up with Fish, a turquoise collector from Austin, Texas.

Native American Bolo, vintage; Indigo Patchwork Jacket and Indigo Scarf, Rare Weaves; White T-Shirt, David Michael; Eyeglasses, Warby Parker

“I went to Fish’s house and I didn’t know if I was buying speed or jewelry. There was a parrot and a guy in a La-Z-Boy. One room had flat files full of necklaces, rings. I tell him I was looking for bolos, and he takes me into the bathroom. He puts the seat down, I sit on the toilet, and there are drawers of different pieces.”

Bernstein received a crash course in the foyer. There’s little centralized information on turquoise jewelry, and widespread forgery makes expertise a necessary tool in finding the best pieces. Now, he’s deep into eBay auctions, message boards, ancient websites, hunting for quality stones and bits of history. Which is how, somewhere outside Austin city limits, 1,800 miles from Queens, our man finally found his subculture.

Back inside the Havas offices, after an impromptu piece of performance art—what does it mean to use a glass-walled office as a changing room?—Bernstein leapt barefoot onto his desk. Adorned in bangles, he struck another pose, half-yoga, half-Amy Cuddy, before settling for a Talmudic shrug.

Surveying the small group of employees below through discontinued Warby Parker frames—turquoise, of course—Bernstein murmured, “I’ve done this one before, but it works.”

Yoga Top and Native American Bolo, vintage; Printed Camouflage Silk Pants, Advisory Board Crystals; Eyeglasses, Warby Parker.

Photos by Christopher Garcia Valle. Styling by Dylan Hogelin.

HIT LIST/WATCHES

Hit List: Chanel Code Coco

by Tanya Dukes

With runway references and an emphasis on crafting in-house movements, Chanel fuses high fashion and watchmaking artistry.

Tanya Dukes

The Chanel Code watch, plus essentials. (Photo: Doug Young)

There’s no arguing that Chanel is a newcomer to the haute horlogerie block. In an industry that measures legacies in centuries, Chanel launched its first watch a mere 30 years ago. But the commitment to the category—bolstered by collaborations with independent watchmaker Romain Gauthier and ownership of watch assembly company Châtelain—has helped it quickly gain on the old guard. Chanel’s mix of technical expertise and its seemingly endless archive crammed with Parisienne elegance makes for a formidable combination.

Coco Chanel circa 1937 (Photo: Lipnitzki, Courtesy of Chanel)

The jewelry watch Code Coco is a case in point. It borrows design elements from one of Chanel’s iconic handbags, the 2.55, and features crisp, sophisticated engineering. Since debuting in February of 1955, the 2.55 has had a bar-shaped closure called the Mademoiselle Lock, a moniker that—according to lore—referred to Coco Chanel’s perennially unmarried status (or perhaps her alleged habit of secreting love notes in her handbag). The same lock serves as a closure for the quartz-powered Code Coco. It clicks into two positions: When horizontal, the black lacquered dial, which measures 38.1 by 21.5 mm, is fully visible. When the lock swivels into a vertical orientation, it conceals the watch’s hands, obscuring the passage of time. It’s a fitting gesture from a brand whose founder declared, “I don’t know how to be anywhere but in the present.”

The Chanel Code watch and the bag that inspired it. (Photo: Doug Young)

The Code Coco’s flexible stainless-steel bracelet unfurls from a bangle to a flat position once opened. A grid pattern that evokes the quilted leather exterior of the 2.55 decorates the polished metal—even the faintest movement scatters light across its textured surface. Another degree of glitz comes from diamond accents. Stainless-steel models include a single diamond on their dials and bezels with or without diamonds. A version in white gold, completely covered in diamonds, is available too—but in a limited edition of five, Chanel’s lucky number and the numeral associated with a certain famous perfume.