Ian Thorley is the founder, publisher, and editor of Something About Rocks — the independent luxury print and digital magazine redefining how jewellery, watches, and culture intersect. He came up through the golden era of independent publishing: Jack under James Brown, Tank, and more than a decade at The Week Fashion, the luxury fashion supplement to The Week. SAR was born from a conviction that the jewellery space was ripe for disruption — and that conviction shows. Rigorous, original, and entirely uncompromised, it’s proof that independent editorial, done with purpose, still cuts through.
On Wednesday night in New York, Blackpink’s Lisa (Lalisa Manobal) starred for Bvlgari. She has been a global ambassador for the house since 2020 and a Louis Vuitton house ambassador since September 2024. The Roman house unveiled auruBOROS, a golden installation by Plastique Fantastique on the High Line, as the New York chapter of Serpenti Infinito. The travelling exhibition devoted to its snake started in Shanghai in 2023 before moving through Seoul and Mumbai last year. Afterwards, Bvlgari’s guests partied at Boom in The Standard hotel.
Lisa at Bvlgari’s Serpenti Infinito, New York PHOTO: Aeon/GC Images)
Lisa arrived in a black lace corset gown by Belik wearing the new Serpenti Flag necklace. Bvlgari’s nod to Jasper Johns’s flag paintings is made in 18kt rose gold, with tanzanite for the blue, coral for the red and diamonds for the white. An 18.75-carat pear-shaped tanzanite sits at the snake’s head. She also wore Bvlgari high jewellery earrings and a ring.
Dua Lipa and Anne Hathaway were at the same event wearing Bvlgari high jewellery. This was the third time in a year that Lisa had worn a major piece from the house’s high jewellery collection at a high-profile event. She wore a mandarin-garnet Serpenti to last year’s Emmys and was the first celebrity to wear the Vimini necklace at the Golden Globes in January.
Bvlgari showed five one-of-a-kind Serpenti pieces in New York. Anne Hathaway wore the Serpenti Falling Drops, a white gold and diamond snake with a detachable drop from its mouth: a 25.76-carat triangular amethyst or a 23.13-carat aquamarine, interchangeable. Dua Lipa wore the Serpenti Helix, a yellow gold tubogas choker with a diamond-set serpent and a 5.46-carat Tanzanian spinel suspended from its mouth.
Lisa in Louis Vuitton collar PHOTO: Leon Bennett/EveryStory2026/WireImage)
On Friday night in Toronto, at the world premiere of Always Lalisa, Sue Kim’s documentary about the year Lisa stepped away from Blackpink, there was no appearance from the Italian jeweller.
Instead, the night belonged to Louis Vuitton. Lisa wore a custom look by Nicolas Ghesquière: a cropped top and column skirt in brown crushed velvet, long black gloves and an eyelet belt. But what caught the attention was the wide, rigid collar of polished metal studded with three rows of domed rivets.
The collar has a name. It is Louis Vuitton’s Reinterpretation Man Ray necklace from the Autumn/Winter collection presented at the Louvre in March. The Surrealist design was reworked with nail-head studs taken from the construction of the house’s trunks and worn with Nanogram clip-on earrings.
She may have been wearing fashion jewellery rather than high jewellery but the effect was the same. It was unmissable and the Man Ray reference and Vuitton trunk studs gave the collar a story of its own.
On Wednesday, Bvlgari dressed Lisa in a one-of-a-kind Serpenti with nearly 19 carats of tanzanite at her neck. On Friday, Louis Vuitton dressed her from head to toe and made a metal collar the centrepiece of the entire look.
Louis Vuitton has its own high jewellery, but it didn’t need it here. This was Lisa’s own carpet: the LLOUD label she founded in 2024, The White Lotus, her solo album and the Las Vegas residency beginning at Caesars Palace in November. The Man Ray collar was less about wealth and more about Lisa. And it was a piece that did all the talking.
The collar is a limited edition from the Autumn/Winter collection; Louis Vuitton has not published a price. The Serpenti Flag is one of a kind, price on application.
One of the best photographs from Thursday night’s (September 10th) MobLand premiere in Leicester Square is a shot Omega could not have orchestrated better. Pierce Brosnan, wearing a double-breasted pinstripe suit and dark glasses, is being embraced from behind by a firm tattooed forearm – swallow tattoo on the hand, skull on the forearm and on the wrist of that arm is an Omega Seamaster Diver 300M. The particular model is in titanium, a brown tropical dial, and on a striped NATO strap. It’s the “007 Edition”, the watch Omega made for Daniel Craig in No Time to Die. And the owner of that arm is Tom Hardy.
Tom Hardy’s Omega 007 edition at the MobLand series 2 premiere (Photo by Joe Maher/Getty Images)
Hardy has been tipped to be Bond for the best part of a decade. He’s never confirmed an interest in the role, nor ever denied one, and he’s spent the years since Venom and Mad Max building a powerful physical on screen presence. Meanwhile Brosnan is a former Bond and importantly was Bond when Omega first started their partnership with the Bond franchise for GoldenEye in 1995. For the role Brosnan famously wore the Seamaster 300M Professional. It was the beginning of a partnership between Omega and Bond that has now lasted for more than three decades.
So Tom Hardy, the lead of MobLand wearing a Bond watch while hugging a former Bond is either good luck, incredible planning or an in joke between the actors. On the red carpet Hardy turned up looking louche and relaxed in a Summer silk bowling shirt, white trousers and trainers next to Brosnan in an elegant suit and tie. The watch looked the most planned part of his outfit.
The Omega 007 edition was launched in 2019 for the film No Time to Die it is a 42mm Grade 2 titanium Seamaster with a brown aluminium bezel and dial designed to look like it has faded in the sun for forty years. Omega’s word was “tropical” on the mesh bracelet or, as Hardy wears it, on the grey, black and gold NATO strap. The caseback carries the “0552” military numbering from the film. It’s not a limited edition, it’s still available and in the catalogue: it retails at around £9,500 ($11,300 in the US). Hardy’s weathered strap looks like he’s worn his for years. The point is this was not a loan, it’s his, he wears it, owns it and clearly loves it. The Omega Seamaster 300m 007 watch was designed with input from Daniel Craig himself.
In the MobLand show Hardy wears something a little flashier and decidedly more gangster – a discontinued solid gold Rolex GMT Master II on an Oyster bracelet. Hardy is a huge watch collector – his personal collection extends to a Rolex Submariner, Rolex Explorer II, Rolex Sky-Dweller, a Rolex Datejust Turnograph as well as a Bvlgari Bvlgari rose gold chronograph.
Brosnan’s own wrist is harder to guess. He’s wearing a round gold watch on a brown strap, mostly hidden under the cuff. But it’s a fair bet that it says Omega on the dial. Anson Boon, who plays the Harrigan grandson Eddie, wore a Tag Heuer Carrera Astronomer Automatic 39mm with a sunray dial.
The jewellery worn by the Harrigan wives was by Bvlgari. Joanne Froggatt wore high jewellery earrings in platinum; two oval diamonds, six pears and thirty-two fancy cuts, 10.26 carats in all, price on application with a Serpenti Viper ring in white gold and pavé diamonds. Lara Pulver wore all Serpenti pieces – Viper pavé earrings with a single Viper hoop stacked above, a Viper bracelet in white gold set with 118 diamonds (5.02 carats), and two Viper rings. Meanwhile Helen Mirren, 81, wore the smallest earrings on the carpet and a single bracelet, a decidedly understated moment. In direct comparison to last weeks the Gentlemen it all looked very deliberate, putting the acting above the show.
MobLand’s second season arrives on Paramount+ on 18 September, with the Harrigans at war and, by every account, Hardy’s Harry Da Souza in the middle of it. Guy Ritchie’s gangsters wear their money on their wrists on the screen; the joke of Thursday night is that the fixer turned up in the most understated watch of the lot. Or was there some further hidden message about the next actor to play Bond?
What is it with animals and jewellery houses? Cartier has the panther, Bvlgari the snake and Chaumet its bees. Cartier has been synonymous with the panther since Louis Cartier first used its spotted coat in 1914, on a women’s wristwatch set with onyx and diamonds.
Cartier don’t release high jewellery collections without a panther in them, and ‘Into the Wild’ has several. There is a tête-à-tête bracelet in white gold, with the cat’s coat replicated entirely in diamonds with matching earrings. Two different pavé settings alternate so that the light moves across it like fur, while the emerald eyes are encircled by the maison’s “fur setting”. Additionally, there’s a rose-gold necklace in obsidian, onyx and diamonds and emerald eyes with its own matching earrings, and a yellow-gold bangle with onyx, black lacquer and tsavorite eyes.
Panthère de Cartier tête-à-tête bracelet CREDIT: Cartier
The panther is also presented as a jewellery watch, made at Cartier’s Maison des Métiers d’Art in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland. Inspired by the technique of cameo carving, the animal emerges in sculptural yellow gold above an onyx dial, with tsavorite eyes, a black-lacquer coat and diamonds around the bezel and lugs.
Faune & Flore de Cartier rings: crocodile, rhinoceros and parrot CREDIT: Cartier
But the real story is a menagerie of new animal-head rings: a rhinoceros, parrot, tiger, carp and crocodile. Cartier calls it ‘The Gallery of Animal Portraits’ and places the collection within Faune & Flore. The ‘Animals’ collection also extends beyond the rings. The tiger and crocodile become fully articulated necklaces and bracelets, while a diamond and onyx crocodile and a yellow-gold tiger also appear as pins. This is a complete jewellery collection, not simply five one-off animal rings.
Each piece has a reference number but as of now no published price. These are not one-off high jewellery creations. They are demi-high jewels, extraordinary pieces made in limited numbers for Cartier’s rapidly growing clientele. Cartier is a house in ascendancy and can barely meet its clients’ appetite for jewellery.
The best piece in the collection is the rhinoceros head. Made of white gold, it is hand-brushed and polished in alternating surfaces to recreate the animal’s skin, with spessartite-garnet eyes, horns in grey agate and a line of black lacquer. The inside of its mouth is perforated to mirror the cracks in the animal’s thick hide.
The parrot is white gold and platinum, with a coral-and-onyx crest and tsavorite eyes. The carp combines white and rose gold with dumortierite-quartz gills and sapphires. The tiger has dumortierite-quartz stripes over sapphire pavé and aquamarine eyes, with diamonds set in what Cartier calls a galuchat effect, the stingray-skin texture it uses when it wants to suggest ice. The crocodile comes in diamonds, onyx and emeralds: white, black and green, one of the maison’s oldest colour combinations, complete with an articulated jaw.
The tiger and crocodile receive the full Cartier treatment, and the reason is because of the archive. Cartier’s association with animals has a history: birds and insects around 1900, followed by reptiles, felines and chimeras, then the zebra and elephant, before Jeanne Toussaint’s first three-dimensional panther in 1948.
The Duchess of Windsor’s tiger jewels from the 1950s and María Félix’s two-crocodile necklace from 1975 are the pieces against which every later Cartier animal is measured, and ‘Into the Wild’ knows it. Both animals return as articulated necklaces and bracelets. The tiger is rendered in sapphires, aquamarines, dumortierite quartz and chalcedony beads; the crocodile in diamonds and onyx, bordered with chrysoprase and rubellites. In both, the clasp is hidden inside the animal’s mouth, so that its head appears to bite its body shut. It is the atelier showing off, and the mechanism is reserved for the two creatures with pedigree.
The rhinoceros, carp and parrot are the new additions to the family. Cartier has made birds for a century, but a carp and rhino, as far as we are aware, have not been seen before. A maison that trades on continuity does not add animals to its animal collection casually. Adding these animal portraits in one collection tells you this is a theme Cartier is likely to continue. This Winter there is no Love or Trinity relaunch. That tells you the space belongs to the animals.
Tilda Swinton wears the Faune & Flore de Cartier crocodile necklace with the crocodile ring. CREDIT: Cartier
Tilda Swinton is the Parisian jeweller’s new ambassador, photographed wearing all five of the animal head rings. She was at the Croix des Gardes for the high jewellery launch in May. For years she has worn the designs of the house. Her collaborator Luca Guadagnino collected the Cartier Glory to the Filmmaker Award at Venice this week.
Swinton’s films are regarded by the movie industry as art, and that’s why she’s wearing these Cartier pieces. She’s not there just to sell the rings, but to present them as individual pieces of art.
Pierre Rainero, Cartier’s director of image, style and heritage, explained that each creature “becomes an opportunity to deliver a message about yourself.”
Contrary to belief there isn’t a written rule that royals must wear pearls to a funeral. Yes, Queen Victoria wore them during her long mourning for Prince Albert. Queen Elizabeth II wore them when she buried Prince Philip in 2021. However, at yesterday’s (September 9th) funeral procession for King Harald V in Oslo, Norway almost every Queen and Crown Princess in the procession wore pearls.
Harald’s coffin was draped in the Norweigan Royal Standard together with the Crown of Norway, made from 20-carat gold and set with pearls, amethysts, chrysoprases, topaz and a large green tourmaline. It was made in 1818 and has been worn by every King of Norway since and placed on the coffin of every Norwegian monarch since 1844.
Queen Mette-Marit, King Haakon VIII, Crown Princess Ingrid Alexandra and Queen Sonja outside the Royal Palace following King Harald V’s funeral. PHOTO: Javad Parsa / NTB / AFP via Getty Images)
Nearly every European royal house was represented. Family members from the Royal houses of Britain, Sweden, Denmark, Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Monaco, Liechtenstein as well as Jordan and Japan were there. It was the largest gathering of crowned heads since Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral four years ago. And they were all wearing their royal jewels.
Pearls have become synonymous with funerals because they can be worn without looking showy or ostentatious. They were also been closely associated with tears, a concept that took hold during the Victorian era. But in Oslo it wasn’t just about pearls, the pieces worn with the pearls are arguably far more interesting.
Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden read a prayer during the service. King Harald was her godfather. Together with her pearl earrings and necklace, Victoria wore an antique heart-shaped mourning brooch given to her by Harald himself. It was an act of personal remembrance from her, wearing a gift from the man she’d come to bury.
Norway’s own royal women wore King Harald’s portrait. Queen Sonja pinned her late husband’s Royal Family Order to her black dress. Queen Mette-Marit wore the same order with pearl and diamond cluster earrings and a three-row pearl necklace. Princess Märtha Louise wore her father’s portrait with a five-row pearl choker fastened by an antique diamond and pearl clasp.
Crown Princess Ingrid Alexandra, who became heir when her father succeeded as King Haakon VIII on 28 August, wore her grandfather’s Royal Family Order with a single row of pearls and a diamond heart pendant set with a central ruby. The red and white stones represented Norway’s national colours. She’s received the pendant as a christening present from her mother in 2004.
Princess Astrid, the last surviving member of Harald’s generation, wore three Royal Family Orders: those of her brother Harald, her father Olav V and her grandfather Haakon VII. One hundred years of Norwegian kings sat discreetly on her lapel.
The Queens of other countries attending also brought their own personal memories. Queen Mary of Denmark wore pearl and diamond earrings with a pearl and diamond cluster brooch that had belonged to Queen Lovisa of Denmark, King Harald’s great-grandmother. This wasn’t purely a diplomatic gesture, she was bringing the family jewels home.
Queen Letizia of Spain wore diamond and pearl earrings by Ansorena together with one of the most important necklaces in the Spanish royal collection. The strand of thirty seven Russian pearls originally belonged to Queen Mercedes, who received it from Alfonso XII in 1878. It later passed to Queen Victoria Eugenia and became part of the joyas de pasar: the jewels reserved for the use of successive queens of Spain.
Queen Máxima of the Netherlands wore pearl earrings and a nineteenth-century pearl and diamond brooch from the Dutch royal collection. She wore the same brooch for Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral.
Queen Mathilde of Belgium also wore the same jewellery from Westminster Abbey four years ago. Queen Fabiola’s pearl drop earrings, a pearl choker and her diamond butterfly brooch.
Queen Silvia of Sweden wore pearls with an antique diamond bow brooch. Hereditary Princess Sophie of Liechtenstein chose a two-row pearl necklace and the diamond ribbon brooch she also wore for Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral.
Princess Anne of Britain was there together with the Prince of Wales representing King Charles III. Anne is King Haakon’s godmother and wore a gold and diamond ribbon brooch.
Princess Charlene of Monaco was more understated combining simple pearl studs with her diamond engagement ring and no other visible jewellery. Crown Princess Kiko of Japan followed Japanese court mourning tradition in black earrings, beads and a dark bow brooch. Queen Rania of Jordan, who is traditionally understated wore almost nothing that could be clearly identified.
The jewellery on display in Oslo was picked because it works. They were not worn to be impressive or magnificent. They were worn because they’d done the job before or there was some personal connection to the late King. Victoria’s brooch came from Harald. Ingrid Alexandra’s necklace came from Sonja. Mary’s brooch belonged to Harald’s great-grandmother. Letizia’s pearls have been passed down to successive Spanish queens for generations.
Royal jewellery isn’t just decoration, each piece has significance. At King Harald’s funeral every piece told a particular story.
Stephen Graham arrived at the Venice Film Festival yesterday wearing his go-to white-dial Rolex Cosmograph Daytona Ref. 116520. However, by the time he walked the Sala Grande carpet for the world premiere of his new film Bunker on Tuesday night, he had changed into a Louis Vuitton Tambour in steel with a blue dial.
The £18,700 watch was part of a complete Louis Vuitton look, combined with a Louis Vuitton suit and loafers. Graham wore Louis Vuitton to the men’s show in Paris this June and has since been collaborating with Creative Director Pharrell and the French luxury house.
The 40mm Tambour Ref. W1ST20 combines a steel case with an integrated steel bracelet and stunning deep blue dial. Inside is Louis Vuitton’s automatic LFT023 calibre, made at La Fabrique du Temps in Geneva, with a 50-hour power reserve and 22ct rose-gold micro-rotor. The Tambour was relaunched and redesigned by Jean Arnault’s team in 2023, twenty one years after the Parisian brand first launched the drum shaped watch.
The 40mm Louis Vuitton Tambour Ref. W1ST20 in steel with a blue dial, priced at £18,700. CREDIT: Louis Vuitton
Prior to yesterday Grahams watch of choice has been his trusty Rolex Daytona. At last year’s Emmy Awards the Adolescence star wore this Rolex Daytona – reference 116520 housing a Rolex 4130 movement, which was introduced to the Daytona models in 2000 and was in production until 2016. Examples sell on the secondary market for around £20,000. The watch has 72 hours of power reserve, a sleek sub-dial and polished bezel. Graham was previously spotted wearing this watch, notably in 2025 while doing the press for A Thousand Blows.
The contrast between Graham’s two watches is more interesting than just another standard red-carpet placement. The Tambour is a current Louis Vuitton watch supplied as part of the evening’s look. The Rolex appears to be Graham’s own and he appears to have no contractual arrangement with the Swiss watchmaker, he wears the watch through choice.
By wearing the Tambour watch at Venice he switched things up entirely. Graham wore the Rolex when he arrived but changed into the Louis Vuitton for the official screening. It’s a message that’s impossible not to notice. Graham’s known for his Rolex but deliberately changed to the Tambour. The actor may still prefer to wear his Rolex off duty but when the cameras are on, he’s now firmly a Louis Vuitton man.
Graham was in Venice for Florian Zeller’s Bunker, in which he appears alongside Javier Bardem, Penélope Cruz and Paul Dano.
The Princess of Wales walked Prince George to his first day at new school Eton on Tuesday morning wearing an emerald Emilia Wickstead dress, Gianvito Rossi suede pumps and two very different pieces of jewellery. Her earrings were £1,720 Cartier Trinity earrings. However her choice of necklace was significantly different, she wore a quiet £144 gold-plated brass chain by Laura Lombardi. Cartier is a go to jewellery choice for the future Queen, but a Laura Lombardi portrait necklace made of brass, that sends a very different message.
Four appearances. Not a single gala dinner. Every time she’s worn the necklace has been for a working engagement or family milestone. Catherine obviously has the royal vaults and the Royal Collection to pick from in terms of her jewellery choices. The fact that she mixed Cartier earrings with a heavier weight brass chain sends a slight different message. Normally her chains are lighter more discreet pieces from Cartier, Mappin & Webb and Daniella Draper. That Laura Lombardi necklace is heavier, sturdier.
“It’s a proper gold chain link, not a fine delicate piece,” comments Nilesh Rakholia, founder of Abelini. “Catherine tends to be associated with refined, understated jewellery, so a chunkier gold chain like this stands out.”
Of course everyone is searching for Diana references. When Diana first took William to school at Eton in 1995 she wore gold knot earrings and no necklace. Catherine doesn’t need to reference Diana. The day is about George, and she’s reflecting that in her quiet jewellery choice.
She’s also on trend. Princess Catherine knows it’s very much in vogue to mix expensive jewellery pieces with more accessible pieces. Wearing Cartier earrings at £1,720 with an inexpensive £144 brass chain does just that. It’s simply how women wear jewellery today. Full stop.
Laura Lombardi meanwhile has sold out her pieces every time Catherine has picked them. No doubt she’ll do it again.
The horsebit is the metal bar and rings that are the part attached to the mouth of a horse’s bridle. Gucci first started playing with the motif in the 1940’s when the design first appeared in the notebook of one of the house’s artisans. Gucci Horsebit later became a link between Gucci’s Florentine craftsmanship and the equestrian world associated with its early customers.
The motif became famous in the 1950’s when it appeared on Gucci’s leather loafers worn by the Hollywood glitterati of the time, John Wayne, Elvis Presley as well as JF Kennedy. Its clean, symmetrical form meant it soon appeared on bags before it was repurposed as bracelets and watches in the 1970s.
Gucci Horsebit first appeared as fine jewellery in 2004 and celebrated its 20th anniversary with a virtuoso collection in 2024 – see here. In jewellery, the motif works both as a recognisable house code as well as a functional design element. The linked curves elegantly forms chains, wraps around the wrist or finger, or becomes the structure of a watch bracelet.
Gucci Horsebit PHOTO by: Carlijn Jacobs
New designs include a selection of necklaces, including a yellow gold chain design alongside small and large pendant styles in yellow or white gold, all with diamonds. Contrarié rings reinterpret the Horsebit motif in yellow gold adorned with diamonds. The bracelets range from a yellow gold chain bracelet set with diamonds to sculptural bangles in two sizes, including a diamond-set yellow gold version and a streamlined yellow gold style. Completing the set is a new Horsebit watch, made from a steel chain bracelet combined with a sleek silver dial. The design is timeless and pays homage to 70 years of Gucci style and craftsmanship.
Six years ago Jean-Christophe Babin created Geneva Watch Days during the pandemic. Today it has become a serious counterweight in the watchmaking calendar. Here, he talks about why watch fairs are still important, the threat from experiential luxury and why brands that refuse to change risk being left behind.
Geneva Watch Days should have been a one-off. It was created in 2020 during the pandemic shortly after Baselworld and SIHH were cancelled. This left the watch industry facing two years without a major live event.
“I remember it was a Saturday morning,” says Jean-Christophe Babin, speaking to me via Zoom last week from Geneva. At the time Geneva Watch Days was created he was CEO of Bvlgari. “We had just learnt the day before that both Basel and SIHH had decided to cancel. Not postpone, because when you rent a convention centre the slot has already been reattributed. You cannot postpone. You can only cancel and wait for the year after.”
In retrospect it seems that Babin was not particularly sorry to see the back of the traditional fairs. He thought they had become too transactional. Bvlgari had subsidiaries around the world and could launch new watches whenever it wanted, but watchmaking could not afford to disappear from global view for two years.
His solution was to create a decentralised event in Geneva. Brands could exhibit from a boutique, manufacture, hotel suite or shared pavilion, wherever they wanted in the city. While the organisers provided the press centre, meeting spaces, dining room and the booking platform. It also avoided the problem of allowing large numbers of people into one exhibition hall during Covid.
Jean-Christophe Babin at Geneva Watch Days
“I called a couple of friends,” he tells me. “Georges from Breitling, Patrick from Ulysse Nardin and Max from MB&F, and we all agreed it was a good idea.” Within 48 hours, the Geneva authorities were behind it. Babin already knew them because Bvlgari’s perfume division had converted part of its production to make a sanitising gel for Swiss hospitals during the pandemic.
“I told them, look, we plan to do it in May, but maybe June, maybe September. We cannot control the pandemic. You will tell us when we should or should not do it.” Now, six years later, Geneva Watch Days has 71 participating brands and a clear place in the calendar. Babin is very clear that it is a complementary event to Watches and Wonders rather than a competitor. “What matters is not the number of watch fairs. It is the specific role of each one and whether those roles are different and complementary. Watches and Wonders is the platform for the established brands. Geneva Watch Days is mostly an incubator for the younger brands.”
Why that matters is because the big groups are selling more and more through their own boutiques, leaving multi-brand retailers hunting for something new. “Retailers need new brands,” he says. “In five days at Geneva Watch Days, a young brand can meet 50, 60, 70 or 80 retailers. You don’t find new brands at Watches and Wonders. Those brands are more likely to be leaving multi-brand retail than joining it. Geneva Watch Days is the opposite.”
Babin points out that the brands taking part in Geneva Watch Days are incredibly important. These same houses have won around 35 per cent of the awards at the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève over the past six years. They are a hotbed of ingenuity and creativity, and their story is important to all watchmaking. Many are independent of big groups and are often still led by the people who both founded and design them. That creativity matters.
People at Geneva Watch Days
With watch events now taking place in Dubai, New York, Tokyo and other major cities, I asked him why Geneva is still important.“The depth of watchmaking is in Switzerland. This is where it comes from, where it is designed and where it is crafted. The moment you move to another country, you go back to transactional.” In Geneva, visitors can meet the watchmaker, designer and chief executive, then visit the manufacture itself.
Babin’s own position is unusual. He created Geneva Watch Days while running Bvlgari and later became chief executive of LVMH Watches, overseeing TAG Heuer, Hublot and Zenith. Did that create a conflict of interest? I wanted to know. “I never forced any brand to join or not to join,” he says. “I explained why Bvlgari was joining both events.”
Babin explained that for Bvlgari it was obvious why they should join as they are the only major house competing seriously across all four areas of watchmaking: precious watches for men, precious watches for women, jewellery watches and high complications. One event was never going to be enough to communicate every part of that message. For smaller brands meanwhile, Geneva Watch Days might be their only real shot at international attention.
The really interesting part of our conversation was not only about watch fairs. It is about what else luxury has to compete with.“The €10,000 you spend on a watch, you could spend to go with your wife to the Maldives,” he says. “One week in a Bvlgari hotel is a memory. The cost has been the same, but it is only a memory. And the magic is that the memory now challenges possession of the gold watch.”
This is the problem for luxury now. A watch is no longer competing with just another watch. It’s also competing with multiple luxury goods and experiences – a holiday, a restaurant, a spa and a multitude of events and products that are available to someone with €10,000 burning a hole in their pocket. It is one of the reasons Bvlgari has pushed so heavily into hotels.
Not only has customer behaviour changed but the customer has changed too. Babin points to the growth of lab-grown diamonds in the US, the rise of Chinese jewellery brands and the speed with which domestic electric-car companies have taken market share from established European manufacturers in China. “You still buy the brand as reassurance of quality,” he says, “but you also buy a design which speaks to you.”
Heritage still matters, but it is no longer enough. Being established and expensive does not make something desirable. “Today the cost of daring is lower than the cost of not daring,” he says. “If you don’t dare, for sure you die. If you dare, you have some chance to stand out.”
He uses Ferrari’s four-door Purosangue as an example. It was attacked by the purists when it was first announced, but demand has quickly swallowed the available production. Ferrari took a risk without abandoning the V8 and V12 cars on which its reputation was built.
Babin thinks luxury has become far too protective of the idea of brand DNA. “For my generation, brand DNA is like God. You don’t even touch it. But a brand is like an animal and we know genetics evolve. The DNA is something the founder established, but now we are five generations after the founder. Obviously your genetic code is evolving.”
He includes himself among the “dinosaurs” taught to treat brand codes as fixed and untouchable. TAG Heuer, he says, has been willing to take the necessary risks. Its connected watch was not an obvious move for a Swiss luxury watchmaker, and competitors quickly abandoned similar projects when they saw the cost involved. “It is the only luxury connected watch on the market. TAG Heuer had the courage to jump into it immediately and the courage to pay the cost of staying in that market when most brands stopped after a few months or a few years.”
Hublot is a different problem. After years of rapid growth, the brand is now consolidating under Julien Tornare and working out how to get to the next level. “What brought us to today’s level doesn’t necessarily take us to the next level,” Babin says. He compares it to a teenager who reaches 1.8 metres at 14. Growth pauses for a while. Then something has to change,
Then of course there is the United States. “The US remains the richest country on the planet. It is a market which will continue to drive luxury growth, as it already does today for watches and jewellery.” China is more complicated. It is still working through the effects of overbuilding and overinvestment, while Western luxury brands are now competing with a new generation of Chinese names, particularly in jewellery. Babin believes the market is improving, but the old assumption that growth in China would automatically belong to the established European houses no longer holds true. “It is not one country which will drive luxury,” he says. “It is primarily the luxury brands which will drive desirability.”
In July, Babin formally handed the Bvlgari chief executive role to Laura Burdese. When I ask how retirement is going, he laughs. “I am a prisoner of Bvlgari, a prisoner of Geneva Watch Days and a prisoner of the foundation. Combined, it is not really being retired. I’ll tell you about retirement maybe in September. My first quarter of retirement is not retirement at all.”
He remains involved with Bvlgari and is Chairman of the Board and Geneva Watch Days President. The handover to Laura Burdese had been years in the making. Babin brought Burdese into Bvlgari in 2022 knowing that she could ultimately succeed him, and says many of the projects launched over the past two years already carry her influence. “She was a natural successor, the further you go towards the end of this year and into 2027 there will be less inherited from Jean-Christophe directly and more from Laura. That is logical and exactly why she was hired.”
Before we finish, I asked him about Jean Arnault. In April, Babin told Bloomberg that Arnault would be “the perfect person to take over” LVMH’s watch division. No decision on Babin’s successor has yet been announced. “It was not only my decision, as you can imagine,” he says. “But I’m very happy for Jean. He is extremely clever, respectful of what has been done and, at the same time, a man of his generation.”
And he applies that same thinking to his management style. “You have to dare to put young people into positions of responsibility who see 50 per cent of the business the same way you do and 50 per cent differently. That is where it becomes enriching.”
In luxury today, standing still might yet be the greatest risk of all.
Martin Katz has created a $62,000 diamond tennis bracelet for the Lotte New York Palace, taking its design inspiration from the New York skyline.The bracelet, named ‘The Palace’ is made up of 12 carats of 84 round diamonds and forms the jewellery centrepiece of Game, Set, Sparkle, a $100,000 US Open experience built around the hotel’s Jewel Suite designed by Martin Katz.
Last night Katz unveiled the collaboration during US Open week, as he attended the hotel’s ninth Palace Invitational alongside Serena Williams, Taylor Fritz, Matteo Berrettini and Caroline Wozniacki for a game of paddle. The four tennis stars swapped their tennis racquets for paddles at the invitation-only pickleball tournament in the Palace courtyard.
Serena Williams and Caroline Wozniacki at the Lotte New York Palace Hosts Annual Palace Invitational. Photo Credit: Ryan Northrop
The whole package is quite unique and as well as including the bracelet there’s a minimum two-night stay in the Jewel Suite, the three-storey, 5,000 sq ft residence Katz designed for the hotel. The suite sleeps four guests and has on display more than $1.5 million of Katz’s jewellery in floating vitrines. It also has a crystal chandelier, a grand piano and rooftop terrace with an outdoor jacuzzi. Any guests booking the suite will also receive a 30 minute jewellery consultation with Katz in the suite. Game, Set, Sparkle is available for stays until 31 August.
This isn’t the first of Katz’s unusual collaborations. Katz has previously designed a perfume bottle with Donna Karan for the launch of a new fragrance with the New York designer, sunglasses with Ray Ban and a brazier with underwear brand Victoria’s Secret.
Katz works out of a penthouse in Canon Drive, Beverly Hills which he’s been based at for more than three decades. His jewellery designs are then made up in workshops across Los Angeles and Paris. His jewellery has been worn by Nicole Kidman, Kate Winslet, Salma Hayek and famously Sharon Stone for the Basic Instinct premiere in 1996.
Louis Vuitton’s first co-branded car didn’t start with a car. It began with a watch. Or more accurately a request for a watch, or a dashboard clock. A very simple request.
It came from Californian customisation kings Singer – renowned for reimagining classic Porsche 911s. They approached Louis Vuitton with a very simple request. Could La Fabrique du Temps Louis Vuitton create a mechanical dashboard clock for one of their 911’s? The question was seemingly simple enough but the answer snowballed.
The best collaborations often do. One idea led to another until Louis Vuitton wasn’t simply designing a clock, but helping reimagine and customise not just an entire car but two.
Porsche 911 Reimagined by Singer Classic x Louis Vuitton
The final result as presented today in Monterey are two Porsche 911s reimagined by Singer for Louis Vuitton. But the real story isn’t about the cars. It’s the watch that started them. At the centre of both sits a mechanical timepiece inspired by the Tambour. The clock borrows the watch’s distinctive case profile, complete with the twelve engraved letters spelling Louis Vuitton around the bezel. Better still, it’s detachable. Remove it from the dashboard and it becomes a desk clock.
But once the Tambour had found its way into the Porsche, the rest of the dashboard suddenly looked out of place. So guess what? Louis Vuitton had to redesign the rest of their car to create the perfect setting for their watch.
Louis Vuitton redesigned the speedometer, the rev counter and gauges around Tambour design codes, reworked the hands, typography, indices and colours to match the watch. The company says redesigning the instruments took a year to develop.
Louis Vuitton Tambour-inspired rev counter
The watchmaking influence extends beyond the dials. Metal controls throughout the cabin are finished using techniques more familiar to haute horlogerie than automotive production, with polished, satin-brushed and anodised finishes replacing standard automotive trim, all with small Louis Vuitton flourishes, the damier pattern subtly heralding those chrome touches,
Jean Arnault, Louis Vuitton Watch Director said today, “This unique and remarkable adventure began with a request for a dashboard clock for a car reimagined by Singer. It quickly became apparent that this collaboration with Singer could extend to the personalisation of every functional element of the vehicle.”
The first car is a Porsche 911 Reimagined by Singer – Classic, finished in Louis Vuitton saffron and cobalt blue. But the second collaboration is off the charts and takes things in an even more interesting direction.
Designed with Nicolas Ghesquière, Louis Vuitton’s Artistic Director of Women’s Collections, the Porsche 911 Reimagined by Singer – Classic Turbo is a cabriolet finished in Calcaire Lutétien white, with gold detailing and varnished timber inspired by the decks of classic Riva motor boats.
Here, the dashboard clock takes centre stage, sitting proudly in the centre console rather than behind the steering wheel. Its dial is colour-matched to the bodywork, while warm gold instruments and a matching ignition key reinforce the link between the interior and exterior. This time, the dashboard clock is joined by a wristwatch.
Ghesquière’s accompanying capsule includes a 40mm Tambour Automatic in ceramic and yellow gold, designed to echo the clock inside the car. When not in use, both can be stored in matching Coffret Trésor cases, themselves based on a Louis Vuitton design first introduced in 1896.
There’s an interesting sense of history repeating itself here. Louis Vuitton was producing luggage for automobiles as early as 1897 and Louis Vuitton’s grandsons even designed a car in 1909 on a Stabilia sports chassis to showcase the House’s automobile designs.
More than a century later, it isn’t luggage that has brought Louis Vuitton back into the automotive world. It’s a watch.
There are two remarkable Porsche 911s at the end of it. But that’s almost beside the point. This story began with a watch. Without it, neither car would exist.
Every week, Something About Rocks goes behind the velvet rope — red carpet exclusives, auction previews, designer access, and the stories the press releases don't tell you. Written by people who were in the room.
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