Patek Philippe Sector Dial

It shouldn’t be surprising that a Patek Philippe holds the world auction record for a watch ($31.2 million for a Patek Grandmaster Chime, sold at Christie’s). Known for impeccable craftsmanship and some of the most complicated timepieces ever created, the brand is considered by many to be the height of fine watchmaking. Collectors simply love Patek Philippe watches.

The house was founded in Geneva in 1839 by Polish expats Antoni Patek and Franciszek Czapek. Czapek left the firm, and in 1845, Patek partnered with French watchmaker Jean Adrien Philippe. It was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Catering to the glitterati of Europe, the pair counted among their clients Tolstoy, Pope Pius IX and Queen Victoria, as well as Countess Koscowicz of Hungary, for whom they created the first Swiss-made wristwatch in 1868. They also had their eye on the American market and in 1851 entered an arrangement with Tiffany & Co. still in effect today.

During the Great Depression, brothers Jean and Charles Stern, who had previously supplied Patek Philippe with watch dials, bought the company, and it continues to be run by the Stern family today.

Under the Sterns, the house has developed some of its most famous models, including the Calatrava, an elegantly minimal dress watch introduced in 1932 and named for the Calatrava Cross (the company’s logo since 1887), and the Nautilus, the brand’s first sports watch, conceived by legendary designer Gérald Genta in 1976.

Despite the house’s longevity, it’s rumored that it has manufactured fewer than a million Patek watches, making each one all the more coveted. (The brand's pieces are understandably attractive to counterfeiters — make sure you know how to spot a fake Patek Philippe watch.)

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Fascination with the Jazz Age is endless, and even today jewelry designers continue to be inspired by authentic Art Deco jewelry and watches.

The Art Deco period, encompassing the 1920s and ’30s, ushered in a very distinct look in the design of jewelry. There were many influences on the jewelry of the era that actually began to take shape prior to the 1920s. In 1909, Serge Diaghilev brought the Ballet Russes to Paris, and women went wild for the company’s exotic and vibrant costumes It’s no wonder, then, that jade, lapis lazuli, coral, turquoise and other bright gemstones became all the rage. There already existed a fascination with the East, particularly China and Japan, and motifs consisting of fans and masks started to show up in Art Deco jewelry.

However, the event that had the greatest influence on Deco was the excavation of the tomb of King Tut in 1922. When the world saw what was hidden in Tut’s burial chamber, it sent just about everyone into a frenzy. Pierre Cartier wrote in 1923 that “the discovery of the tomb will bring some sweeping changes in fashion jewelry.” And he couldn’t have been more right. “Egyptomania” left an indelible mark on all of the major jewelry houses, from Cartier to Van Cleef & Arpels, Boucheron and Georges Fouquet. (Cartier created some of the most iconic jewelry designs that defined this era.)

While a lot of Art Deco jewelry was black and white — the black coming from the use of onyx or black enamel and the white from rock crystal and diamonds — there is plenty of color in jewelry of the era. A perfect accent to diamonds in platinum settings were blue sapphires, emeralds and rubies, and these stones were also used in combination with each other.

Many designers employed coral, jade and lapis lazuli, too. In fact, some of the most important avant-garde jewelers of the period, like Jean Després and Jean Fouquet (son of Georges), would combine white gold with ebony and malachite for a jolt of color.

A lot of the jewelry produced during this time nodded to current fashion trends, and women often accessorized their accessories. The cloche hat was often accented with geometric diamond brooches or double-clip brooches. Backless evening dresses looked fabulous with sautoir necklaces, and long pearl necklaces that ended with tassels, popular during the Edwardian period, were favored by women everywhere, including Coco Chanel.

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From vibrant to subtle, elegant to cheeky, vintage and antique enamel jewelry and watches encompass a wide range of colors and styles, and there are almost as many techniques for creating these distinctive pieces.

Enameling is one of the oldest forms of surface decoration, used to add color to jewelry without having to rely on gemstones. Evidence of enameling goes back to ancient Greece. Throughout history, far-flung cultures favored different techniques. For example, cloisonné enamel was popular during the Byzantine Empire, while artisans living in France and Germany in the Middle Ages preferred champlevé. And Art Nouveau jewelry designers favored plique à jour.

At its core, enamel is the fusion of powdered glass to metal, and artists like enameling because it allows them to add a painterly or illustrative quality to their work.

Cloisonné (“cell” in French) is a technique in the creation of enamel jewelry that sees the use of thin wires of fine silver or gold to outline a design, which is then filled with enamel. The piece is subsequently placed in a kiln where the enamel is melted. Cloisonné is distinct because the individual wires remain visible, forming an outline of the motif.

Champlevé (“level field” in French) enamel is almost the opposite of cloisonné. In this technique, depressions in the metal are made by etching, engraving or chiseling, and then layers of enamel are built up until they rise slightly above the surface of the metal. The enamel is then fired and polished.

Guilloché is a technique in which translucent enamel is applied to a piece of metal that has had designs cut into it using a lathe. After the firing, the patterns on the metal become visible. Guilloché was made famous by Peter Carl Fabergé, whose jewelry house used the technique on many of its objets d’art as well as jewelry.

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Can you pull off a vintage pocket watch? Of course you can. With a suit and a waistcoat, a pocket watch can be a refreshing alternative to a wristwatch.

The earliest pocket watches were luxury items, and, owing to cost, they weren’t commonplace until the 19th century. Artfully crafted pocket watches were a symbol of wealth, and manufacturers such as Vacheron Constantin and Patek Philippe became known for theirs. (Today, they’re among the most sought after by collectors and enthusiasts.)

At the onset, pocket watches resembled small round table clocks, and pulling your small round table clock — perhaps of the silver variety — out of your breast pocket in front of someone else demonstrated unequivocally that you cared about punctuality. For collectors, pocket watches are big, and that means a larger canvas provided for functions without crowding the dial. For example, the Marius Lecoultre pocket watch — made circa 1890 — does everything but uncork your wine.

In the late 1800s, the open-face pocket watch became a staple on the American railroad. It was a requirement for railway workers to wear a pocket watch, as the timepieces were responsible for keeping conductors on schedule. This was a boon to the watchmaking industry, with companies like Hamilton, the Elgin National Watch Company and the Waltham Watch Company producing high-grade and workingman’s watches.

By the 1930s, wristwatches comprised the bulk of watch manufacturing in America, superseding the pocket watch. Suddenly, if you wanted to know the time, you merely glanced at your wrist. But given their vintage charm and our general appetite for good design, pocket watches are a piece of statement-making jewelry and today can prove complementary to your formal attire in a manner that is stylish and unconventional.

Let time take its course — browse a vast selection of antique and vintage pocket watches available on 1stDibs designed by legendary brands such as IWC, Cartier and more.