Quick Look: Chanel Coco Clock

This recently popped up on one of my feeds and quite frankly, I was intrigued. Mind you, Chanel isn’t a brand that’s on my radar, and even though I was aware of their accomplishments in the watchmaking world, Chanel to me were handbags and perfumes, with the occasional lipstick thrown in the mix.

Now, dear readers, before your thumbs start tapping and drawing out the pitchfork emoticon, hear me out. Or rather, keep scrolling. 

I still remember quite fondly the time my colleague and I visited the flagship boutique at 31 Rue Cambon, because she wanted to buy the bag. I think it was the 2.55. To be honest I don’t remember this particular detail. They all look the same to me. Yes, iconic and unmistakably Chanel in black with quilted diamond pattern, but otherwise... Of course, who can forget the No.5 perfume? As someone who is not a keen disciple of the fashion industry, I think that pretty much covers it... 

Let’s get back to the topic at hand. When I saw this my interest piqued. What a wonderful and whimsical display! Such Playfulness. I needed to know more! But guess what? Clocks, being something less “commercial” today, it was surprisingly difficult to find any information of note to quench my thirst. What’s that you say? The official website? Sure. Have a look. It’s not exactly brimming with information on this particular item of whimsicality. Therefore i fired up Google, and let my fingers do the research.

Chanel J12 feat. Coco, Limited to 555 pieces each colour.

It appears that this caricature of Coco Chanel was first used to tell the time on the J12 ceramic watch back in 2017 (that I could find. Leave a comment below if I’m wrong), in a limited edition of 555 pieces per colour (well, black or white). They have brought her back in a table clock form this year. There was a different version of the clock previously featuring a dial inspired by her love of coromandel screens. The obsidian case is of course, inspired by the shape of the stopper on the perfume No.5, which in turn was directly inspired by the shape of Place Vendôme in Paris.

Chanel Coromandel Clock

Bird's eye view of Place Vendome

What I really wanted information on, and something that was difficult to come by, was the movement in the clock. From first glance it’s skeletonised mechanical movement, but it’s too large to be a watch movement, as my first instinct was that it was the Calibre 2, designed with the help from Romain Gauthier, in the shape inspired by a Camellia flower; a favourite of Coco’s. Upon further digging, I managed to find what i needed. The movement appears to have been designed by Chanel Creative Studio and produced by the famed L’Epee Manufacture. You know, the ones that do all the clock collabs with MB&F, not to mention some really cool clocks of their own. The dial features a playful caricature of Coco Chanel, complete in diamonds and pearls, with cloissone enamel by master enameller Anita Porchet.

Chanel Calibre 2 - in the shape of a Camellia flower

8 Day clock movement, designed by Chanel, produced by L'Epee

The other collab which is much more distinctively L’Epee, the Chronosphere, was more widely covered.

The Chronosphere, Collab with L'Epee

So there you have it. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one dying to know what was powering the mademoiselle clock. There’s gotta be at least another 1-2 of you out there. And in case you’re wondering why there was another Chanel related article, it was the search for this clock movement that led me to the whole Kenissi movement supplier, which was covered in the previous post.

Coco Clock Specs:

Dimensions: 110mm x 153mm x 61mm

Cased in Obsidian

18k gold base with 136 diamonds

18k gold ring with 305 diamonds

8 Day power reserve manual wind with winding key

LImited Edition of 10 pieces

Price: Approx. $756,000 AUD

Marking Time - 'The Clock' & a horological workshop

Following an AUD$53 million redevelopment, Sydney’s Museum of Contemporary Art re-opened, at the end of March, with a new exhibition called ‘Marking Time’. Featuring the work of eleven Australian and international artists, it shows the ways in which they visualise the conception and representation of time through the use of photography, painting, drawing, sculpture, installation, sound and light.

I’ve only spent a brief period looking at the exhibition so far, but intend to return soon. There are some hypnotic works there, but the two parts of ‘Marking Time’ that I’ve spent most time with so far have been a weekly ‘workshop’ run by the Sydney chapter of the National Association of Watch and Clock Collectors, and the Southern Hemisphere premiere of Christian Marclay’s remarkable 24-hour video work, ‘The Clock’, for which he was awarded the Golden Lion for best artist at the last year’s 54th Venice Biennale.

‘The Clock’ comprises of several thousand short extracts from cinema history, each suggesting or referencing a particular time of day or actual time, through the on-screen appearance of a watch or clock, or an utterance. Marclay has created a cinematic collage to form an amazing 24-hour sequence which is synchronised with the viewer’s time - I arrived at 6.30pm and this was the time referenced in the film as I sat down.

To have achieved this was a monumental enough effort on its own, but it is only after watching it for a while do you realise that the scenes were not randomly selected just to satisfy the requirement of a reference to the time in question, but that there are in fact narratives, and allusions to a previously featured film clip, or even a continuation of the clip. I have only managed a few hours so far, but hope to see as much of the entire film as I can. It is being played continuously during the MCA’s opening hours and every Thursday, for the duration of the exhibition, there is a 24-hour screening, with the museum’s café open throughout the night for those doing an overnighter. Last week, there were queues to get in during the late hours, and the cinema was at capacity (with an occasional queue) during my visit.

The free ‘workshop’, which is being held every Thursday evening for the duration of the exhibition, is called ‘Talk and Tinker’. The website describes it as a celebration of the history of time-keeping via an exhibition of clocks and watches, at which there is a master watchmaker for you to chat to, and perhaps show your own timepiece to.

As it turned out, it is not a workshop so much as a small exhibition run by the local members of the National Association of Watch and Clock Collectors, containing items from member collections. I didn’t get to meet the watchmaker, but I did get to chat to one of the volunteers, who told me that they have a very strong local membership, and that their monthly meetings routinely attract around a hundred people. We had a discussion about ‘watch’ versus ‘clock’ people, as it became evident that the focus of the NAWCC is more on the latter, and agreed that they are quite different breeds. He was a very welcoming, educational and friendly gentleman, and I enjoyed the exhibition, but alas my interests probably don’t overlap with theirs.

They were happy for photos to be taken, so without further ado, here are some of the items that are on display :

For more information about the exhibition, visit the MCA’s website here. It's well worth a visit.

[AP]

The Manifold Clock

After the success of the LunaTik, timekeeping has again hit Kickstarter with the 3D Manifold Clock, which shows the time via constantly changing shapes created by a flexible sheet of Tyvek attached between the hands.

So it looks a bit funky, but what’s it all about?

It turns out that the Manifold is pure maths geek. The idea behind it was to create a clock with a flexible surface based on the mathematical notion of Riemann surfaces.

The two hands are connected with a flexible sheet of Tyvek. The circular movement of the hands causes the surface to move, changing the clock appearance every minute. The surface rotates freely around the hands.

A $45 Kickstarter pledge gets backers a clock, $100 a jumbo-sized version. Interestingly, a $1 pledge is available, for a screen saver version. With over $23,000 raised and ten days to go, the Manifold Clock has already topped its $15,000 Kickstarter goal.