The Witty, Wild World of Gucci Watches Online

Gucci hasn’t broken the internet, but it has cracked Instagram. And we can’t get enough.

Photographs by Martin Paar

For its new Instagram campaign, Gucci commissioned British photographer Martin Parr to capture its new watches at nine so-called Gucci Places—sites of brand inspiration, including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Maison Assouline in London, and Gucci’s own Florentine garden. As with all of Parr’s work, the photos are hyper-saturated, acerbic, precisely observed. It’s the only luxury watch campaign this year co-starring a stale croissant, a pigeon’s gnarled claw, and a few spots of a tourist’s acne. #TimeToParr is as visually successful as it is ambitious. Which is saying something. 

ITALY. Gucci. Time to Parr. 2018.

The collaboration between Gucci, a brand that’s as Italian as bus strike, and Martin Parr, documentarian of British kitsch and quirk, was not self-evident. It owes its existence to one Roman Anglophile: Alessandro Michele, the visionary, maximally-coiffed creative director of Gucci.

Michele’s love of the British is foundational. His very first collections featured models that looked as if they were honey-dipped then dragged through the Elizabethan, Victorian and Edwardian eras; above the shoulders alone, accessories included ruffled collars, slips of tartan and silk scarves knotted under the neck, a look recognizable to viewers of The Crown. Another dream, realized in 2016, was a Gucci show staged at Westminster Abbey, the sight of all English coronations since William the Conqueror’s ascent in 1066. Cool, Britannia.

ITALY. Gucci. Time to Parr. 2018.

Now we have these Martin Parr pictures, which—not to put too fine a point on it—are about perfect. Timely, technicolor, absurd and charming. From the company that sells four-figure jackets embroidered with the Yankees logo, commissioning the former president of the Magnum photography collective to shoot an Instagram campaign makes a perverse kind of sense. It’s the full glory of high-low.

But there are many British photographers. What bound Michele’s cavalcade of prints, ruffles and horse-bit everything specifically to Martin Parr is a two-part epoxy: one part robust Anglophilia, one part dense, referential, mordant wit. Parr’s work is most often described as anthropological and satirical. What are Michele’s silhouettes, pulled from Renaissance paintings, if not anthropology? What is an interlocked-G Gucci logo the size of a focaccia if not satire?

Rather than flying in a phalanx of models, Parr cast subjects via their proximity to Gucci’s chosen locales and, in the case of one Chatsworth House groundskeeper, for the proximity of the green of his jacket to Gucci’s own trademarked hue. The man, gray and gentle, sweeps the pavement. Peeking from beneath the sleeve of his fleece: a 38mm G-Timeless, its band a perfect match to the worn broom handle.

GB. England. Gucci. Time to Parr. 2018.

Another photo from Chatsworth is a portrait-of-a-portrait: two teens taking a selfie. They’re demure and apple-cheeked. The boy’s phone case, garish and worn, would give most art directors an aneurysm. But follow his hand down to the wrist and you see the juxtaposition: cheap plastic foregrounding Gucci’s Eryx G-Timeless, sitting as serene and golden as a sphinx.

Across the Atlantic, a different shot shows a woman head to toe in pink: clothes, nails, eyeglasses, jewelry, hairdo, notably taut face. Whatever she’s regarding is out of frame, but it could be one of LACMA’s Rodins—her hand clasps her chin in homage to the sculptor’s “The Thinker.” The watch, Gucci’s Le Marché Des Merveilles, is appropriately Pepto-Bismol, plus serpents, studs, and shoe-leather from one of Shirley Temple’s old Mary Janes.

HONG KONG. TOKYO. LA. NYC. Gucci. Time to Parr. 2018.

Was commissioning Martin Parr, famed for biting meta-portraits of the leisure class, to photograph luxury goods a wise idea? Can such a surfeit of irony—Gucci’s current retro-indulgence plus Parr’s wicked perspective plus The Internet—trick the laws of metaphysics, piercing through layer after layer of critique, parody and burlesque, and end up engendering the glamour that makes a buyer point to a bauble, and say, Mine?

And so one might wonder: Is this #TimetoParr campaign the best Anglo-Italian collaboration since Spaghetti Westerns?

Indeed, we say. Decisamente, si.

Holiday Books for the Mechanical Mindset

Need some ideas for a fabulous holiday gift, but that platinum complication or Italian sports car is little out of your price range? Watch Journal has some excellent suggestions.


An example of the beautiful imagery inside Ferrari: Under the Skin. (Photo: Courtesy of Ferrari)

A wealth of new books have arrived this season aimed precisely at the mechanical mindset, showing that the link between cars and watches has never been closer. The wintery roads outside may be dangerous, but curl up on the sofa where you’re safe and sound, and take in the latest in mechanical masterpieces. Because as every watch, car, and book lover knows, there is always something aspire to and always more to learn.

Ferrari: Under the Skin

Written to coincide with an exhibition at the London Design Museum on view until April 15, 2018, Phaidon Press releases Ferrari: Under the Skin, richly illustrated with history, technical drawings, master models, and striking photography of one of the most famous racing machines of all time. A must-have for Ferrari fans, as well as anyone wanting to know more about one of the most compelling cars in history.

$49.95, phaidon.com

The Cartier Tank Watch

A 100-year legacy gets celebrated in The Cartier Tank Watch, by Franco Cologni and from Flammarion-Pere Castor, a look at the fascinating history of one of Cartier’s greatest masterpieces. Based on the lines of the Renault “landships” or “tanks,” an enduring classic was born, a sleek, rectangular timepiece that looks as modern today as it did a century ago.

$80, editions.flammarion.com

Autophoto: Cars & Photography, 1900 to Now

A photo history of the romance between art and cars gets smartly considered in a book created specifically for the Foundation Cartier, Autophoto: Cars & Photography, 1900 to Now, from Éditions Xavier Barral. More than 500 works made by 100 historical and contemporary artists from around the world are shown, including Brassaï, Robert Doisneau, William Eggleston, Walker Evans, Robert Frank, Jacques Henri Lartigue, Joel Meyerowitz, Catherine Opie, Martin Parr, Ed Ruscha, Malick Sidibé, and Stephen Shore.

$65.00, exb.fr

Automata

Author Nick Foulkes explores the enchanting world of automatons, or highly articulated mechanical figurines, in Automata, from Éditions Xavier Barral. These mechanical animated objects, explicitly linked to watchmaking, were designed to inspire thought, science, literature, and the performing arts. Beautifully illustrated with photographs, manuscripts, and documents, the book examines these fascinating marvels from ancient times to the present day.

$69.95, exb.fr

Drive Time Expanded Edition

In April 2016, Rizzoli New York released Drive Time: Watches Inspired by Automobiles, Motorcycles, and Racing, by Aaron Sigmund, and it sold out in under six months. Copies of the first edition/first printing sell for up to $995, more than 10 times the original price. Following up on the unprecedented success comes Drive Time Expanded Edition, with a foreword from Jay Leno and afterword by LVMH Watch Division CEO Jean-Claude Biver.

$85.00, rizzolibookstore.com