Chanel is celebrating the 25th anniversary of its J12 watch this year with what it has described as a major technical feat: the debut of a proprietary ceramic color that took five years to develop. A deep midnight blue that borders on black and shifts shades depending on the light, the J12 Bleu, as Chanel calls it, goes beyond the color restrictions of the past.
Chanel, however, is not alone in this new territory. Panerai, Audemars Piguet and Zenith also have spent years creating new blue ceramic hues.
The appeal of blue in watch design is hardly new — blue dials that were printed or even painted by hand have been popular for centuries. As the Pantone Color Institute noted when it named Classic Blue its color of the year in 2020, blue conveys “calm, confidence and connection.”
Yet the ability to create completely blue cases and bracelets is a relatively recent advance that began with colored PVD (physical vapor deposition) coatings on stainless steel. Later, colored technical ceramic was developed — but the first blue tone, used by the likes of Richard Mille, IWC, Omega and Hublot, was a bold cobalt, the only pigment then on the market.
Arnaud Chastaingt, the director of the Chanel Watchmaking Creation Studio in Paris, said that while Chanel is known for its black and white color schemes, he was inspired by some dark blue evening gowns he had seen in an exhibition years ago, and by the blue of some jewelry boxes the house used in 1932 for a special Bijoux de Diamants collection.
“They proposed many colors of blue to me before I saw the one I loved and immediately knew it was the perfect blue for Chanel,” he said. “It’s a blue close to black, or a black close to blue, depending on how you see it.”
While the quest to develop color variations may be driven by stylistic or aesthetic demands, working with ceramic presents operational challenges. Engineering ceramic is created out of inorganic, nonmetallic powders, most commonly zirconium oxide. When the powders are mixed with bonding agents to set the material, the colors change, making it hard to create a specific color.
Experts say that maintaining the material’s signature qualities such as its scratch resistance, hypoallergenic properties and lightweight feel while also perfecting a new color is tricky. Success requires extensive research and development, cutting-edge production methods and time-consuming rounds of trial and error.
“A Long Process”
“When I decided to create a special blue for Chanel, I worked with our ceramic team to understand the complexity,” Mr. Chastaingt said. “You can’t just add color to white ceramic or give color to black — you have to discover a blend of color and properties. I understood it was going to be a long process.”
Chanel’s original J12 was released in 2000 in black ceramic and then in 2003 in white. A subsequent plan to expand the brand’s expertise in the material led to the eventual creation of an in-house ceramics division. Having developed its own injection molding process over the years. Chanel now makes its own case and bracelet components from proprietary ceramic powder formulas and compressed cylinders of zirconium oxide powder.
The J12 Bleu collection — introduced at the Watches and Wonders Geneva fair this month — includes nine iterations. The J12 Bleu 38MM Sapphires watch, for example, created in a 100-piece limited edition, boasts a bezel set with 46 baguette-cut sapphires and dial markers of 12 baguette-cut sapphires. (155,000 euros; the U.S. dollar price is still undetermined).
Chanel said it would take a year to produce the J12 X-Ray Bleu, which is machined from sapphire crystal and accented with matching blue sapphires (€1.2 million).
Deep Sea Hues
Panerai spent nearly three years perfecting the blue of its ceramic, a matte color that has no official name. But unlike Chanel, it does not have its own in-house ceramic department, so it had to turn to an outside supplier, which it declined to identify.
The result was the 300-piece 40-millimeter Luminor Quaranta BiTempo Ceramica, which was quietly shown to retailers at Watches and Wonders Geneva this month and is expected to be available for sale in late summer or early fall. (€16,300; $16,000 in the United States)
“The first blue they showed me was too bright, too electric,” said Jean-Marc Pontroué, Panerai’s former chief executive of 25 years who recently left the company. “Panerai is really a very much black-on-black-on-black brand.”
The brand began making watches for the Royal Italian Navy in 1916. Thanks to those marine origins, Mr. Pontroué “wanted a blue that borders on black, a subtle evolution,” he said. “It is a way to offer choice to our customers without being flashy.”
The color development process involved many exchanges between Panerai and its zirconium oxide supplier. “There is no Pantone color to pick because the making of the powder into the finished watch involves binders and chemicals that can change the initial color,” said Jérôme Cavadini, Panerai’s chief operating officer.
He identified a range of acceptable blues to provide some margin for error, but multiple prototypes were made, he said, before the supplier achieved a hue that Mr. Pontroué thought appropriate.
“You always have some surprises when you are making ceramic because of the process,” Mr. Cavadini said, noting that “each attempt requires a lot of patience.”
The Night Skies
The night sky has been a fount of inspiration to brands branching out into blue.
In early April, Audemars Piguet unveiled three deep-blue ceramic options in its Royal Oak line. These Bleu Nuit, Nuage 50 models take their color cue from the hue from 1972 that the designer Gerald Genta selected for the first Royal Oak watch dial — a shade itself inspired by the inky evening darkness of the Vallée de Joux, the forested Swiss location of the brand’s workshop.
Zenith also looked to the heavens for Zenith Blue, a ceramic color it created to fete its 160th anniversary this year. “We wanted to look to the starry sky for a kind of blue that reflects the stars, the zenith, but also were inspired by our archives,” said Benoit de Clerck, the brand’s chief executive. “We found a lot of blue dials from our past and wanted to push that to the next level.”
The project, overseen by Romain Marietta, the brand’s chief product officer, involved working closely with the powder supplier, case manufacturer and bracelet maker.
It took a long time to create and replicate the exact shade of bright blue they wanted, he said. “Any variation could be a nightmare during assembly of, for instance, the bracelet and its many parts, and then for the case and bracelet to match.”
He noted that inconsistencies could occur as late as during the finishing process: “When the parts come out of the mold, they have to be microblasted to achieve the satin finish, and all of the angles are made by hand. So there can be color variation even at that stage.”
The development process, Mr. Marietta said, took about a year, with additional time needed to perfect the finishings and polishings. The brand introduced the new color at Watches and Wonders Geneva, saying that three models would be rolled out this year, each as a 160-piece limited edition.
They are: the 41-millimeter Pilot Big Date Flyback Edition 160 Years ($15,500), set to debut in April; the 42-millimeter Defy Skyline Chronograph Edition 160 Years ($23,800), to arrive in June; and the 41-millimeter Chronomaster Sport Edition 160 Years, scheduled in September.
Was it cost-effective to pour so much research and development effort into just 480 watches? “Our customers expect innovation from us,” Mr. de Clerck said, “ and we have to deliver.”
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