he history between Vacheron Constantin and women is long, passionate and little-known. The two-century-old manufacture, reputed first and foremost for its men’s watches, has from its earliest days accompanied women along the path to equality.

Its archives are overflowing with timepieces designed for a female customer base well-versed in the art of watchmaking. The oldest women’s pocket watch in the company’s private collection, the bezel of which is bedecked with pearls, the caseback chased and engraved, dates from 1812. But it is far from being the first women’s watch to emerge from the workshops of Vacheron Constantin. In the 19th century, 30% of the correspondence received at the manufacture came from women. In one such letter dating from 1908, which we were able to read, the sender mentions the existence of a watch she had inherited from a great-aunt. The serial number inscribed on her timepiece dated it back to the 18th century, which meant that the model was produced at the time of Jean-Marc Vacheron.

Pendant watch 1812

Four ways to wear a watch

Throughout its history, Vacheron Constantin has dressed women’s wrists with the greatest of elegance. Starting in 1879 and for the next sixty years, the manufacture worked hand in glove with jeweller Ferdinand Verger, whose business became Verger Frères in 1921. Together, they created jewellery that told the time, including a number of magnificent Art Nouveau and Art Deco models, and even a handful of high-jewellery pieces now conserved in the archives – among them an Art Deco pendant watch from 1923 ornamented with a superb oval-shaped sapphire. Collaboration between the two companies ended in 1938, but Vacheron Constantin’s longstanding relationship with women has endured.

Diamond and sapphire jewellery watch, 1923 – The original 1979 Vacheron Constantin Kallista – Kalla, 1980. ©Vacheron Constantin

It was not until 1979 that Vacheron Constantin positioned itself in the high-jewellery watch market with the launch of the Kallista, followed one year later by another marvel, the Kalla. In 2024, the manufacture is reconnecting with this tradition and introducing the Grand Lady Kalla, a versatile jewellery watch that can be transformed to be worn in four different ways. The timepiece will be produced in a strictly limited edition. This multiple-versatile bijou can be worn as a wristwatch, a bund, a pendant watch or a necklace. It is set with 268 emerald-cut diamonds of great purity.

Lady Kalla Flamme, 2010 – Lady Kalla 2000. ©Vacheron Constantin

But for a greater understanding of this piece, we must set it in the context of its aristocratic lineage, which dates back to 1979 when the Kallista was originally created. Commissioned to create a jewellery watch for a customer, the manufacture called on one of the most highly reputed French painters of the time: Raymond Moretti. The model he designed marked a milestone in the history of watchmaking. It was sculpted out of a single yellow gold ingot and set with 118 emerald-cut diamonds totalling 130 carats. The reproduction of Raymond Moretti’s work, the prototype of which is kept in the archives at the Vacheron Constantin manufacture in Plan-les-Ouates, shows the abstract silhouette of a man and a woman. This sinuous shape in yellow gold on the caseback, symbolising the bond between the couple, was created at the request of the customers. Kallista, a name inspired by the ancient Greek word kallisté, meaning “the most beautiful”, was considered the most expensive watch in the world at the time.

Art Deco style

“The Lady Kalla, the Kallista’s little sister, was made in 1980 and it’s from that watch that the Grand Lady Kalla takes its name,” explains Sandrine Donguy, Product & Innovation director at Vacheron Constantin. This high-jewellery watch, also carved out of a block of yellow gold and studded with 108 emerald-cut diamonds, gave rise to numerous others. “There are 45 watches bearing the name of Kalla,” says Sandrine Donguy. There was the Kalla Pagode (1990), the Lady Kalla from the year 2000, which in 2001 won the Aiguille d’Or at the GHPG in Geneva, the Kalla Duchess (2006), the Kalla Lune (2007), the Lady Kalla Flamme (2010) with its flame-cut diamonds, a cut invented by Vacheron Constantin and approved by the Gemological Institute of America (GIA)and the Kalla Haute Couture à secret (2009), to name just a selection.

But now to the star of the moment, the Grand Lady Kalla. When the watch head is mounted on the necklace of akoya cultured pearls and onyx beads with pendant drops of precious stones, it has an Art Deco air. You can easily imagine it around the neck of the heroine of an F. Scott Fitzgerald novel. The bracelet, with its diamond-studded decoration, the central, 2.08-carat stone of which is GIA-certified, can be worn separately on another occasion, or simultaneously as a complementary jewel, since the entire set is modular.

The case is in white gold and the watch is powered by a quartz movement, “for the purposes of thinness,” Sandrine Donguy explains. “We’re a haute horlogerie watch company; most of the Lady Kallas were driven by specially shaped manual-winding calibres. We asked ourselves what the focus of this model should be: a mechanical movement or creative versatility? We felt it was more important to present our customers with a watch that can be transformed into a jewel, so we opted for the thinness required to create a system that would allow for switching and swapping.”

While transformable watches, such as the 1924 watch with its removable attachment system that allowed the platinum pendant, set with rubies, emeralds, onyx, pearls and diamonds, to be transformed into a brooch, were already a part of Vacheron Constantin’s heritage, finding a secure and discreet way to transform a bracelet or necklace into a watch without tools presented quite a challenge.

“That was the most complex part of the development,” admits Sandrine Donguy. “A leading Parisian jewellery workshop helped us find the best possible mechanism. Working at this level of excellence, it’s important to be able to rely on our partners’ know-how.” Turn over the jewel-cum-timepiece and you see two recesses by which the central piece – either the watch case or the jewel decoration – is released. It can then be placed either on the bracelet or the necklace. “The decorative piece is very unusual: quite apart from the fact that it’s set with diamonds totalling 45 carats, the centre stone alone weighs just over 2 carats. Altogether, the set contains more than 140 emerald-cut diamonds,” comments the Product & Innovation director.

Grand Lady Kalla Sketch bracelet, ©Vacheron Constantin

Perfection takes time

Some stones had to be recut to correspond to the original gouache sketch. “During the creative development, the gem-setter also reinvented the prongs, which are shaped like a Maltese cross – our emblem – where the four diamonds intersect. We set out to modernise the gem-setting technique called “reverse Clous de Paris” which is practised on this kind of piece. By assembling triangles together, you get a Maltese cross, which adds a more modern touch. We hadn’t thought of it when we began development, the idea emerged gradually over time,” Sandrine Donguy explains.

And a very long time it was: “We began working on the piece in 2018 and took six years to achieve this result. The first designs were overproportioned, we weren’t achieving the elegance we were looking for, the harmony between the watch head and the central decoration. We made numerous mockups and tested the swapover system. It took a huge amount of behind-the-scenes preparatory work. But since the company hadn’t done anything in the way of high jewellery for a long time, we wanted it to be perfect.”

Setting the Grand Lady Kalla. ©Vacheron Constantin

“Perfect”, “perfection” – these are words that can drive both success and failure. In the case of the Grand Lady Kalla, they were a driving force. Observing the piece from every angle with a magnifying glass, it is clear that the product of those six years of work is flawless. Yet solutions had to be found to invisible problems. Take the dial, for example. It had to be as thin as possible, in order to leave sufficient room for the hands. The problem was that it is entirely paved with diamonds of unimaginable brilliance and depth. “The thickness of the gems is unusual: they’re cut like emeralds, but rather flat. We had to adapt them to the dial,” explains Sandrine Donguy.

With the Grand Lady Kalla, a masterful expression of the art of gem-setting, one of the many crafts mastered by the manufacture, Vacheron Constantin can now dream of variants created in direct collaboration with customers in search of a unique jewellery watch, made to measure with specific gemstones. With this unexpected jewellery timepiece, Vacheron Constantin continues to write a story that still bears echoes of its beginnings – when women played a leading role.