Vanessa Lecci has had many jobs throughout her working life: art conservator, professional volleyball player, gem setter, engraver, metal worker, fresco restorer, theatrical set designer, teacher, clock decorator, art framer and coach.
But in the world of watches, she is known best as a master enameler.
“Enameling is not just a technique,” said Ms. Lecci, 52. “It’s a world. It is not boring, it’s not monotone. I fell in love with it.”
Ms. Lecci always liked working with her hands. She grew up in Salve, a small town in southeastern Italy, where, she said, “my mother was a sculptor, working in stone, wood, marble and alabaster.”
“I was always in her studio, helping her do the polishing and finishing,” she continued. She also had a great-uncle who owned a forge: “In his atelier I saw how fire transforms metal.”
At 14, she entered the metal and jewelry division of an art institute in the nearby town of Parabita, where she studied skills such as enameling and gem setting. And after graduation, she enrolled at the Academy of Fine Arts in Lecce, Italy, to earn a degree in art history.
But then she became a professional volleyball player, a sport she had started playing as a teenager. “What I loved about volleyball was above all the team spirit,” she said, “this synergy where each player brings their touch to create something great.”
And playing for various teams provided an unexpected gift: “My sports career brought me by chance to Switzerland,” where she coached the sport in Neuchâtel before turning to the local watch industry for employment.
Time to Be Independent
Ms. Lecci’s first enameling job, in 2003, was to create Cartier’s in-house atelier. “At that time the enamelers were very rare and all independent, and Cartier was the first maison to internalize the business,” she said.
Three years later, she said, a colleague “went to Girard-Perregaux as director and I went with him and I set up the enamel and setting atelier.” She moved to Patek Philippe in 2011, “but I was not at peace with myself,” she said. “I think it was time to be independent. I left Patek and in 2013 I started my own atelier.”
She has worked on a variety of projects for many watch houses, from Louis Vuitton to small makers such as T3 Special Watches. One she recalled warmly was a 2016 commission for Vacheron Constantin, the Ciel de Corée, or Korean Sky.
“The main challenge was the use of a new technique in watchmaking, from Asia: invisible cloisonné,” she said, a project she undertook with Jiyoun Han. “A real four-handed work, with 1,500 stars arranged on different layers of enamel and the Milky Way made in invisible cloisonné. This project took a month and a half of work.”
Ms. Lecci now has two studios at her home in Neuchâtel, where, she said, “it is quiet, calm, and I can work without interruptions.” One is an enameling workshop and, the other, a studio where she paints decorations on traditional Neuchâteloise pendulum clocks. She also has a second enameling workshop in a building on a hillside overlooking the city center; tours of that space may be arranged through Homo Faber, a cultural organization with a website that lists artisans around the world who open their ateliers to visitors.
She also has conducted workshops on enameling, including at the Musée International d’Horlogerie (M.I.H.) in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland. “She has participated on numerous occasions at the M.I.H. to promote the expertise and mastery of enameling, a craft she practices with remarkable dedication and enthusiasm, one that she conveys beautifully to a wide audience,” Nathalie Marielloni, the museum’s vice curator, wrote in an email. “Her contributions to the field are widely recognized and greatly valued.”
Nearly 400 Colors
Ms. Lecci’s enameling process starts with designing a minute and often intricate pattern in a rainbow of colors for a space that is rarely more than 48 millimeters (1.9 inches) in diameter. “I have a mortar and pestle to grind the pigments, refine the powders and prepare the enamel shades with a perfect texture for application,” she said. “I hand-grind all my powders to decide different particle sizes for each color.”
As for colors, “I have nearly 400 enamel colors,” she wrote in a follow-up email, adding that they are made of metal oxides, with other oxides to provide color.
The enamels are toxic, Ms. Lecci said, so “I carefully store them in small glass and plastic containers, according to their sensitivity to humidity. To protect myself, I wear a respiratory mask with a filter and I sometimes wear gloves and protective clothing.”
She applies enamels with brushes barely thicker than a human hair, then fires the results in a kiln at 800 degrees Celsius (1,472 degrees Fahrenheit), a temperature that earned the process the French label of grand feu, or grand fire. “My kiln is medium sized,” she said, “large enough to fire one piece at a time, but not too large, so I can ensure precise temperature control.”
The firing is done in stages, one color at a time. It is an inexact art, bordering on science, knowing which colors to use, and how each color will actually look after the firing, and if the firing will crack the item.
Multiple Techniques
There are various types of enameling technique and Ms. Lecci prefers two: cloisonné, which deposits enamel in pockets outlined with thin wire, and cabochon champlevé, which deposits enamel in cavities engraved into the base metal.
But not content with the two techniques, Ms. Lecci invented a new one.
In 2009, the founder of Parmigiani Fleurier, Michel Parmigiani, turned to her for enamel work for its 46.7-millimeter Toric Tecnica Carpe watch, a one-of-a-kind piece in 18-karat gold.
“It brought together multiple enameling techniques rarely combined,” she wrote in an email. “I introduced a technique I had developed myself, which I call ‘convex and concave’ — a variation of cabochon enameling, where the material rises and recedes in relief, capturing light in a completely new way. I wanted to bring movement to the enamels, to step away from the traditional way they had been used, and create a more fluid, organic dynamic.”
Ms. Lecci said the experience was a defining one for her and led to a continuing collaboration with the Parmigiani brand.
Every year, Parmigiani Fleurier introduces a watch on Dec. 2, Michel Parmigiani’s birthday. Last year, it unveiled L’Armoriale Répétition Mystérieuse, a 41.6-millimeter timepiece with a concealed dial in polished jade, issued in a five-piece limited edition.
As the watch has a so-called cathedral gong system, “the time is revealed through sound,” Guido Terreni, the brand’s chief executive, wrote in an email, “allowing the entire surface of the front to be dedicated to artistic craftsmanship — a pastel green translucent enamel guilloché pattern created by Ms. Lecci.”
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