Loris Cecchini has teamed up with Chaumet to re-interpret its Class One watch. The Italian artist has created a stylish white time piece in a limited edition of 300 copies, for the French high jewelry brand. The wave-like pattern adorning the leather bracelet evokes the ripping shapes in his Wallwave vibration installation pieces. This marks the first time that Cecchini has extended his sculptural vocabulary into a collaborative retail venture.
“The idea for the watch was inspired by fluid time and reflects my work perfectly–it’s monochromatic and has the waves in two directions,” said the 45-year-old artist. “I chose to make a watch and not jewelry because I have a passion for technology and the watch is a time-machine and an architecture for the body.”
From the first drawings through to the final product, the project took a year. The watch was unveiled in March at Chaumet’s store on the Place Vendôme, the epicenter of high jewelry in Paris. Cecchini made a temporary Wallwave vibration mural installation and a suspended sculpture, Waterbones, formed from joining organically-shaped steel modules, for the launch.
Prior to this collaboration, Cecchini had made one-off pieces for Dior, Chanel, and Fendi, such as Stage evidence (2010), a white Dior handbag sinking into a white puddle, for the Lady Dior As Seen By exhibition at Milan’s Triennale Museum. The collaboration with Chaumet is the first to have resulted in a limited edition product. “I’m always trying to find a way for me to learn something else,” Cecchini muses.
