On a balmy afternoon in Geneva in early April, Swiss joggers with their T-shirts neatly tucked into their workout shorts have flooded the promenade along the Quai Wilson. To the south, Mont Blanc looms, still snowy white, but to the west, the terraces outside of the grand hotels that line the Swiss banking and diplomatic hub’s lakefront fill up with patrons speaking a cacophony of languages. Nearby, in the botanical garden, forklifts are being used to heave hibernating palms out of their towering greenhouse for a much-needed dose of direct sun.
Geneva’s true first sign of spring is nowhere near Lac Léman, however, but hidden away in a convention centre by its airport. The Palexpo is hosting the 2024 edition of the trade show Watches and Wonders. Across a seven-hectare show floor, almost 50,000 visitors will browse and try on new releases and novelties from timepiece heavyweights and indie upstarts.
There is little natural light or fresh air in the cavernous Palexpo. Instead, a sprawling village of blockbuster booths (including multistorey structures and spaces with Broadway-level set design), Champagne bars and workspaces sustain brand reps, retailers and press over four days of appointments and cocktail parties. (Since 2023, the fair has also welcomed the general public. In 2025, a select number of its 60 exhibitors will open for watch fans from April 5 to 7.)
At the far end of the convention centre is Chanel’s show space. Anchored by a sundial fashioned from a giant gold sewing needle suspended above pristine white carpet, the hushed room feels more like a museum installation than a sales booth. In the vitrines that circle the room are what the brand calls its “Couture O’Clock” timepieces, which mimic the tools found in the house’s clothing ateliers in Paris: domed pin cushions, a thimble hung from a chain and a musical clock of miniature dress forms that dance below an ornate chandelier.
In a quiet salon behind the booth sits Arnaud Chastaingt, the director of Chanel’s watch creation studio. Chanel’s watchmaking history started in 1987 with the Première, a timepiece that encapsulates many of the house’s most recognizable design details including the octagonal cap of a No. 5 perfume bottle and the chain of a 11.12 handbag. Chastaingt joined Chanel in 2013, when he was given a mildly intimidating marching order: develop Chanel’s first in-house movement. Three years later, the Calibre 1 debuted with the release of the Monsieur watch. The masculine counterpart to the Première, it pays homage to the men (and men’s-wear) that inspired Gabrielle Chanel.
Chanel’s debuts at Watches and Wonders include a limited-edition Monsieur model in all black with a nylon and leather strap, a Première case set into a wide mesh bracelet of 18-karat gold-coated steel and versions of its best-selling ceramic J12 watch set with brilliant cut diamonds. But it’s the dressmaking pieces that stand out.
“When I went to the [haute couture] workshop on Rue Cambon, I was very fascinated by the women and the men at the workshop wearing this big ‘jewel’ on the wrist,” Chastaingt says, describing the inspiration behind the Mademoiselle Privé pin cushion grouping that also includes a necklace and a ring. “I loved when I saw women who have small wrists wearing this creation because you don’t see the bracelet. It makes a real graphic impact.”
That visual punctuation point is important to Chastaingt. “Of course, a watch is a kind of tool. It’s to read time,” he says. “But for me, the thing that’s important is the style.” Chanel’s catalogue of fashion, accessories and fragrances are all distilled in these objects.
On a sunny day in Neuchâtel in mid-October, the exuberance of early spring has faded. Teenagers are bundled up for an after-school visit to a carnival that takes over the centre of town, which is the gateway to Swiss watchmaking located halfway between Geneva and Zurich on its eponymous lake. At Brasserie Le Cardinal, a bustling eatery painted with arsenic green murals of flowers and waterfowl, tables are full of rockfish stew, entrecôte and other cozy fare.
Style Advisor’s team is in town to photograph the Chanel watches that debuted earlier in the year. The backdrop is Hôtel Palafitte, a delightful, incongruous and entirely worth-the-trip to-Neuchâtel campus of overwater pavilions. Built as a temporary project for the Swiss National Exposition in 2002, it’s remained an architecturally ambitious destination for more than two decades.
Première Ribbon Couture watch in 18-karat gold and printed leather, $12,900 at Chanel.
As the team positions the watches around the nautically-inspired property, the details of the Couture O’Clock pieces come into focus. The most literal expression of the dressmaking theme on hand, the Première Ribbon Couture watch, places the classic model’s octagonal case on a black and gold leather strap printed with the markings of a tape measure. Another take on the Première converts the case into a charm that’s suspended among safety pins, spools of thread and other atelier knickknacks. The face of the Boy-Friend Couture watch is accented with a tailor’s pattern for a tweed jacket, the same style worn by an illustrated Gabrielle Chanel in the Mademoiselle J12 Couture watch in black ceramic.
On a chilly morning in late November, the road that takes you from Neuchâtel into the Jura Mountains and the heart of the Swiss watch industry, La Chaux-de-Fonds, are lined with the remnants of the first snowfall of the season. At the city’s Musée International d’Horlogerie, a brutalist concrete bunker dedicated to the history of watchmaking, visitors escape the chill by browsing timepiece treasures encased in plexiglass globes.
La Chaux-de-Fonds and nearby La Locle are UNESCO World Heritage sites for their watchmaking legacy. Since 1993, when it acquired G&F Châtelaine, Chanel has owned its own manufacturing facility in the city (in 2019, it also acquired a stake in the Le Locle-based movement maker Kenissi).
Over the past decade, some Swiss watchmakers have begun opening their factory doors to the public (or, at least, their best customers), but Chanel prefers to maintain a bit of mystery around the creation of its timepieces. So it’s somewhat surprising that, today, the house has given an all-access pass to its manufacturing headquarters to a group of international watch writers for a forensic-level look at how its watches are made – and a tease of what’s to come at the 2025 edition of Watches and Wonders Geneva.
Many of its 480 employees have been at their desks for hours when our lab-coat wearing group starts snooping around at 9 a.m., inspecting machinery meant to test the resilience of materials and watching artisans set gems by hand using a microscope. In 2024, the Chanel watch team supported the launch of 44 different models. While its output of J12 watches is a few hundred per day, the building also houses its Haute Horlogerie team, which can spend weeks assembling a single showpiece.
The J12 marks its 25th anniversary this year, which, as you might guess, is a hint of what Chanel’s focus at the watch fair this April will be. The model’s importance to the watch team is clear as they break down how they develop the precise composition of its ceramic case and evaluate its performance (one machine spins the watch with a trail mix of metal house keys and lip-gloss tubes to ensure it will survive being jostled in the bottom of a purse).
Back in Geneva in April, Chastaingt had shared that when he started working on Chanel’s first in-house movement, he was surprised that these watchmakers travelled to Paris to ask him about his aesthetic philosophy for a component that is often treated as a purely technical element. Touring the workshops in La Chaux-de-Fonds, it’s clear that the precision and quality of the house’s timepieces are top of mind but it’s also apparent that technical aptitude equally serves a sense of style.
“Chanel is a creation brand. For jewellery, for fashion of course, for perfume and for me too, for watches,” Chastaingt says. “Thanks to Chanel for giving me the opportunity to be free like that. To create my vision of the watch world – the watch object.”
ON LOCATION
Geneva
Ariana Museum
Nextdoor to the UN’s Palace of Nations, this museum focuses on the history of glass and ceramic artworks. musee-ariana.ch.
Izumi
Atop the Four Seasons hotel, Izumi serves Japanese fare with views over the city. fourseasons.com.
The city of Geneva, Switzerland, with its landmark fountain, Jet d’Eau, seen illuminated at night.FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP/Getty Images
Hotel les Armures
For traditional fondue and new twists, this intimate hotel’s wood-panelled restaurant serves options made with Vacheron, Gruyere and blue cheese from Neuchâtel. lesarmures.ch.
Watches and Wonders
General admission tickets to this annual watch fair sell out quickly but the event sprawls across the city with other public installations and experiences. watchesandwonders.com.
La Chaux de Fonds
Musée International d’Horlogerie
The permanent collection of this watch museum includes 10,000 pieces that trace the history of timekeeping from the 16th century to today. mih.ch.
Neuchâtel
Brasserie Le Cardinal
This is a charming spot to connect with Neuchâtel’s local energy over hearty French fare. lecardinal-brasserie.ch.
Hôtel Palafitte
Overwater pavilions hold spacious rooms outfitted with vitrines displaying artifacts of local history and terraces with stainless steel ladders that step down into the lake. Stays from CHF550 through palafitte.ch.
For more on Chanel timepieces, visit chanel.com
Styling by Nadia Pizzimenti. Photo assistant: Anaïs Nieto.
Style Advisor travelled to Switzerland as a guest of Chanel. The company did not review or approve this article prior to publication.
