These days men and women alike wear glittery adornments, so novel ways of adding bling to watches is just a sign of our times, according to Philip Warren, the English fashion historian who is chairman of the Costume Society, an organization that works to preserve clothing from the past and present, and knowledge about it.
“Sometimes luxury goods speak through discreet gestures, sometimes ostentatious,” he said. “Now, we are in a more ostentatious era.”
And to help watchmakers capitalize on that trend, suppliers have been developing some particularly showy materials and techniques, including a method to apply color without dimming the tiny gem particles called nanodiamonds, along with processes to crystallize precious metals.
Twinkling Through
Last summer Positive Coating, a company in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland, announced it could add color to nanodiamonds, the microscopic version of diamonds that primarily have been used in medical technology and space applications, without diminishing the gems’ brilliance.
The company first creates a kind of powder made up of specks of lab-grown diamonds — each speck is about 140 microns (0.14 millimeters, or 0.0055 inches) in diameter. Thin layers of color then are added in a vacuum chamber process called Atomic Layer Disposition, which takes from five to 20 hours, depending on the chosen color, with yellowish brown being the fastest and green the slowest.
“The brilliance and shine comes from the diamonds, not the translucent color which sits on top,” said Lucien Steinmann, the company’s co-chief executive. “If you do this kind of coloring on a metallic powder, it doesn’t have this shiny effect. So, the shiny effect comes from the diamonds, and the color from the thin coating.”
He said several watch brands were interested in the development, but declined to identify them. “For a watch dial,” he noted, “we would use a few grams of nanodiamond. As each stone is so small, I have no idea how many that would be, we are talking thousands.”
‘Flawless Effect’
CristalTech, a Swiss supplier, developed a laboratory process in 2018 to crystallize ruthenium, a rare, silvery-white, transition metal that is part of the platinum group of elements.
And in 2021 the watchmaker Arnold & Son used the result for its limited-edition Luna Magna Ultimate I and II models (both $214,000).
“When setting diamonds you have certain constraints in terms of design — you cannot have this flawless effect,” said Pascal Béchu, the company’s managing director, referring to the midnight blue or turquoise ruthenium crystals that appear to float across the models’ dials.
(Mr. Béchu noted that the process should not be confused with ruthenium plating, an electroplating treatment used by many watch brands, including Nomos and Ferdinand Berthoud.)
“Crystallized ruthenium is a material not widely used in the industry,” Mr. Béchu said, although his brand has used it on five models since 2021 and high-end brands have showcased it on models such as the Ulysse Nardin Freak S Watches of Switzerland Centenary Exclusive and the Harry Winston Ocean Sparkling Big Date.
“Our clients like that it is a noble and precious material, and that you don’t see any settings,” Mr. Béchu said. “We believe the final result is even nicer with ruthenium than with a full pavé diamond dial.”
Glittering Surface
Osmium, a shiny, dense, brittle metal that also is part of the platinum group, is even rarer than ruthenium — and its crystallization process is even more complex.
“It is mixed with the ore of platinum, and when you extract platinum, you can get a few grams of osmium,” said Xavier de Roquemaurel, the chief executive of the independent watch brand Czapek Genève. “This metal is emitting a mortal gas when in its raw version. But when you crystallize it, it becomes inert, and you can use it on a dial.”
And that is what Czapek did in 2022, using crystallized osmium in its limited-edition Frozen Star S watch, which sold all 38 pieces shortly after its release. The material also has been used on watches such as the Hublot Classic Fusion Tourbillon Firmament, the Une Osmium Evolution Lady Edition and the Ulysse Nardin Executive Tourbillon Free Wheel Osmium.
The crystallization process takes 160 steps, starting with 40 to 50 steps of chemical purification, according to Ingo Wolf, a scientist who founded the Osmium Institute in Germany to ensure the material’s uniform handling in trade and processing as a jewelry metal and investment metal.
Eventually, Mr. Wolf said, the result is “a glittering surface where you can see sunlight reflected at 30 to 40 meters,” or about 100 to 130 feet. “If you compare with diamonds in similar circumstances, you will only see the reflections from a six-meter distance,” he added.
Mr. de Roquemaurel also noted the appeal of osmium’s hue: “It has one of the nicest light blue, slightly gray colors. This color and material is really a tribute to the beauty on our planet.”
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