Getting Creative With The Vacheron Constantin Historiques 1921

One of the most difficult things to do in watchmaking, is to make a simple, time-only wristwatch that manages to be immediately visually distinctive as well. There are a lot of things to love about the Dufour Simplicity, for instance, to pick just one exceedingly elevated example, but as a design, it is fundamentally identical or nearly identical to any small, round, high grade mechanical watch with a sub-seconds display. Its appeal is not in its novelty, but in the excellence with which the basics are executed.

However, although a simple time only watch gives you only a few elements to work with, you can within those restrictions, be surprisingly creative. It is as Madeleine L’Engle wrote in A Wrinkle In Time, on the subject of the sonnet: the form is very specific but within those constraints you can do anything you want. While the vast majority of time-only watches from Switzerland and for that matter, everyplace else, have not strayed far from a round case shape, simple dial markers, and three hands there have also been watches that show remarkable ingenuity in variations on the theme.

Cartier for instance has built much of its reputation in variations on the theme, including many variations on the Tank, as well as the Cartier Crash, and the designer Gilbert Albert came up with so many wild simple wrist and pocket watches for Patek Philippe that he changed the world of watch design forever (and his designs are a cornerstone of one of the most spectacular watch collections on Instagram).

One of my favorite examples of thinking outside the circle, is the Vacheron Constantin Les Historiques 1921.

The Les Historiques 1921 is part of the larger Historiques collection, which is the platform for Vacheron’s designs which are taken from historically significant watches – the fan favorite 1955 Cornes de Vache chronograph is in there, along with the 222, the current mostly-unobtainable-unless-you’re-Brad-Pitt cult watch. The 1921 as the name suggests, is based on a design first fielded by Vacheron in the 1920s, when the Art Deco movement was in full swing and watch design was enjoying the same exuberant spirit of optimism found in everything from consumer goods to the decorative arts, to architecture. The 1921 was not the first nor the only offset crown case design – three American watch casemakers, for instance, were producing them before 1920, and Vacheron produced its first example in 1919 – but thanks to Vacheron’s resurrection of the design in 2008, it’s by far the best known example of the type.

The signature element of the watch, other than the cushion case, is the rotation of the dial to the right, and the position of the crown at the upper right corner of the watch (Vacheron’s model from 1919 had the crown at the upper left corner as well).

Why the dial and the crown were positioned this way is anyone’s guess. For many years, watch enthusiasts and the enthusiast press believed that the watch had been intended as a so-called driver’s watch, and that the rotation of the dial to the right was meant to make the time easier to read with your hands on the steering wheel. It turns out that this is not the case, and I suppose we all ought to have suspected the story didn’t really hold up – for one thing, the original model from 1919 had the crown and dial rotated to the left, which means that the design certainly didn’t start out as a driver’s watch, unless Vacheron had decided for some reason to turn it into one in 1921. Eventually, Vacheron’s Christian Selmoni told us that there was in fact no evidence at all in Vacheron’s archives that the original version had ever been intended as a driver’s watch, demoting the notion that it had been to the status of urban legend (along with the idea that the design for the Cartier Crash was inspired by a watch destroyed in an automobile accident).

The only reasonable assumption is that the offset dial, subdial, and crown were intended purely as an exercise in design. The only major difference between the original and the current versions, other than size (the current collection has the 1921 in either a 40mm or a 36.5mm case) is the position of the crown relative to the small seconds subdial. In the original, the subdial is opposite the crown, at the 6:00 position, while in the new models it’s at 3:00.

The reason for this is that the original was built around a movement originally intended for a pendant watch. The new version is build around a wristwatch movement with small seconds, in which the crown is offset from the small seconds dial by 90º rather than 180º.

Several years ago, Vacheron actually went ahead and took on the project of making a unique piece 1921 model, based on the original from 1919, and using only watchmaking techniques which were available at the time. The only major exception in the movement were the plates and bridges, which were CNC-milled out of German silver, or maillechort (a nickel -zinc alloy at one time commonly used in high grade watches, and today, famously used by Lange & Söhne).

Vacheron’s unique piece 1921 homage, alongside an original model on the right. Image, Vacheron Constantin

All of the mobile parts of the movement (wheels and pinions, as well as the balance and escapement) were new old stock, from Vacheron’s archives.

The re-made caliber R.A 11 lignes Nouveau Amerique, in the unique piece shows the original configuration. The fourth wheel, which turns once per minute and on whose pinion the seconds hand is fitted, is opposing the crown.

By contrast, the new versions of the 1921 use the caliber 4400. This movement was introduced by Vacheron in 2008, the same year that the 1921 launched and in fact, the first versions of the 1921 were the launch platform for the movement.

The caliber 4400 is a combination of very traditional and more modern watchmaking. The movement carries the Geneva Seal (a hallmark of both quality and and provenance) and much of the finishing, including the black polished kidney shaped stud for the balance spring, is traditional.

However, the movement has a 65 hour power reserve, and at 28.60mm in diameter, is slightly larger than the 11 ligne caliber found in the original. The movement also beats at a modern 28,800 vph.

The Vacheron Constantin Historiques 1921 is a personal favorite of mine; Vacheron makes a lot of fantastic watches, of course, but there is something about the design of the 1921 that I find incredibly appealing. Vacheron historically was, of the Big Three/Holy Trinity (Vacheron, Patek, and Audemars Piguet) often the one with the most unusual and decorative case designs, and the 1921 represents a high water mark of early 20th century watch design for Vacheron and for the industry as a whole. In its modern version, it’s also a significant chapter in Vacheron’s modern history, both as a design, and as the launch model for the caliber 4400.

The 40mm version is a stunning watch, but I think that the 36.5mm model is closer in feel and spirit to the original and certainly, at that size, it’s well within the current trend (or maybe I should say, return to normalcy) towards watches with more classic case diameters. It’s piece of elegant watchmaking that is cheerfully unstuffy, even celebratory in appeal – especially with that just-in-time-for-the-holidays red strap.

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