The Shutter-Dial Vacheron Constantin Les Historiques “Jalousie”
A Vacheron for the voyeur in all of us.
The whole idea of a watch is to tell the time, but there is a whole genre of watches whose raison d’être is to make you work for it. This group includes but isn’t limited to so-called “secret” watches, which in general are pieces of jewelry which have a hidden watch dial that you have to uncover manually if you want to see the time. The purpose of such watches – I suppose you could also include the Reverso if you choose to wear it reversed, with the dial hidden, which some people like to do – is less to visibly and instantly tell the time, and more to make the act of checking the time into something a little more active and even a little, dare I say it, fetishistic. To make such a watch, you generally need a rather small movement – Jaeger-LeCoultre has gotten a lot of mileage over the years out the unbelievably tiny caliber 101 – but you don’t get into the genre because you expect such watches to perform with the precision of a marine chronometer, but because you are susceptible to beauty and a bit of a romantic.
One of the flat out classiest and most interesting examples of the genre, are watches which have dials hidden by a system of shutters. Often but not always, the shutters are decorated with engraving or enamel, and this type of watch enjoyed some popularity during the Art Deco era; Cartier made shutter-dial watches from time to time. Vacheron Constantin made shutter-dial watches in the same period, including this beautiful example sold by Phillips in 2016, which was made in about 1930. The case was a specialty item, created by Parisian jeweler Verger Frères, with whom Vacheron worked between 1875 and 1938. While the mechanism is clever and compellingly touch-able in itself, back in the Deco era, it would also have served a somewhat practical purpose as well, as the shutters would have protected the crystal and dial.
Verger Frères made “montres à volets” (watches with shutters) as brooches as well.
More recently, inspired by its own shutter dialed watches from the 1930s, Vacheron released the Les Historiques “Jalousie” shutter-dial watch. The name “jalousie” literally means “jealousy” and in this case, refers to a type of louvered window which could be open or shut to reveal or conceal from view the interior of a house and presumably, any jealousy inducing shenanigans that might be transpiring therein.
The shutters in this example are engraved with a very fine pattern of s-shaped curves which I can only imagine must have severely taxed the skill, as well as the patience and the eyesight, of the engraver. The pattern is hand-engraved (I wonder if nowadays someone wanting to make one of these would try and take a shortcut by using a CNC machine or diamond tipped machine cutting tool) and one of the charms of this very charming watch, is that each one of the s-curves is slightly different.
The pattern is quite hypnotic – the variations in the engraving are nearly indetectable, even under high magnification, and rather than detract, they actually serve to emphasize just how much practice and control was necessary to execute the pattern.
You almost don’t want to activate the shutters, but, however, that’s half the fun. The shutters on the watch are opened by slidingthe blue cabochon just under the dial to the right.
The shutters are quite thin – this is partly because you would want them to have relatively low mass, but also because you want them to as much as possible, disappear from view when you activate them. Thanks to their slimness, the time is quite easily legible once the shutters are open.
This sort of watchmaking and watch design is enjoying a resurgence of appreciation nowadays and for a collector looking for something that really captures the spirit of elegance and ingenuity that has made vintage Art Deco watches from Cartier and others so collectible, but which is a little off the beaten path, the Jalousie is both a wonderful addition to an existing collection with that focus, as well as a wonderful departure from business as usual in any collection. I can remember seeing them occasionally more than twenty years ago and thinking that they were one of the most successful variations on the idea of a dress watch I’d ever seen. The notion of a dress watch is a complicated one – for semi-formal attire (which for a gent is a tux or “dinner jacket” as they are also called; true formal attire for gents in the evening is white tie) the rule is a watch which does not call attention to itself. Some authorities on the matter like to say that a dress watch should be in a white metal (preferably platinum).
Nowadays, one need not confine oneself to wearing a dress watch just when dressing up – a watch like the Jalousie is delightful enough on its own merits to be much more versatile, perhaps, than the folks at Verger Frères ever intended. At 40mm x 25mm, its quite versatile in size as well. The Jalousie has sex appeal to burn – just be careful about wearing it to your favorite collector’s GTG, because this snazzy conversation piece is going to have you sliding that slide a lot.