Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic LVMH announced that it had acquired Swiza, the owner of Swiss horology brand L\u2019\u00c9p\u00e9e 1839, at the end of June. The statement contained the usual corporate blandishments: it was a \u201cjewel in the crown of haute horlogerie\u201d, there was a \u201cdetermination to preserve and develop historic savoir-faire\u201d. What made it unusual was that the manufacturer in question is not a watch brand but a clockmaker. When the luxury world\u2019s apex predator snaps up a clock factory, clearly something is going on.Clocks are not exactly new, but the way\u00a0L\u2019\u00c9p\u00e9e does them is. Forget traditional carriage clocks, cuckoo clocks and grandfather clocks; think instead of ones in\u00a0the shape of revolvers, aeroplanes, racing cars, sculling boats, vintage cars and hand grenades. L\u2019\u00c9p\u00e9e collaborates with the avant-garde watchmaker MB&F on clocks that look like giant spiders, while with Ulysse Nardin it created the buoy-shaped UFO (Unidentified Floating Object). It also carries out work for big-name brands beyond niche watchmaking, including Chanel.\u201cWe see a potential with this knowhow applied to different universes of our brands,\u201d says Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Arnault who, as head of LVMH\u2019s watch and jewellery division, was behind the acquisition. The potential of\u00a0which he speaks can already be seen in\u00a0such pieces as a New York City taxi in Tiffany blue and the Louis Vuitton Montgolfi\u00e8re A\u00e9ro, a time-only hot-air balloon with an LV trunk as the basket (there\u2019s also a limited-edition diamond-set version).Big Luxury\u2019s interest in clocks extends well beyond LVMH. Some of the first stirrings of the 21st-century grand luxe clock revival were felt around 2017 when Nicolas Bos, then president of Van Cleef & Arpels and\u00a0now CEO of Richemont, revitalised the tradition of the automaton. It had taken seven years working with Fran\u00e7ois Junod, a maker of automata based in the\u00a0Swiss Jura, to create the first \u201cExtraordinary Object\u201d: the F\u00e9e Ondine, a\u00a0one-off kinetic sculpture of a gem-set white-gold fairy awakening on a rippling lily pad, quite overshadowing the clock in\u00a0its base.In time F\u00e9e Ondine itself was overshadowed by later\u00a0masterpieces including the Fontaine aux Oiseaux, featuring two gem-encrusted gold birds moving their heads, flapping their wings and walking around the edge of a pond. It won its class at the 2022 Grand Prix d\u2019Horlogerie de Gen\u00e8ve, which was the\u00a0first\u00a0year to feature a category for mechanical clocks; it also heralded the launch of a series of simpler, smaller but\u00a0still precious clocks, each featuring the\u00a0blooming of\u00a0fantastical flowers.Under Bos, Van Cleef became known for its resuscitation of historical decorative techniques, creating watches with a narrative. \u201cWhat was exciting and also frustrating is that we had to do that within the size of a watch,\u201d he says. Clocks offered a larger canvas, creating \u201cmechanisms that are not necessarily only telling the time, but trying to tell a story\u201d. The stories have attracted \u201ca lot of collectors and watch lovers\u201d, he adds. \u201cI don\u2019t know if they have everything, but they have already explored what can be explored with watches. We\u00a0now see that there is an interest for different sizes and different stories.\u201dThe desk clock business is really going to thrive\u201cStorytelling\u201d has been cheapened by overuse in marketing departments, but narrative is central to this revival. \u201cThe inspiration really comes from Gabrielle Chanel, her apartment, her universe\u201d, says\u00a0Chanel\u2019s president of watches and fine\u00a0jewellery, Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Grangi\u00e9, of a musical\u00a0clock featuring a quintet of dancing Stockman mannequins that move up and down, while rotating on a carousel to Al Bowlly\u2019s \u201cMy Woman\u201d. Time indication may be a\u00a0distant third to the music and motion, but it is no afterthought, and is read off\u00a0a\u00a0scale that looks like a\u00a0tape measure.Grangi\u00e9 suggests that the new interest in clocks might, among other things, be \u201ccoming from the fact that it\u2019s becoming unsafe to\u00a0walk around with great watches or jewellery. People want to be surrounded by objects they love. Most of\u00a0our clients are women, so we will see these objects in dressing rooms, in bedrooms, as\u00a0part of the most intimate universe they live in.\u201d Although priced over \u20ac2mn, the Chanel clock sold quickly.\u00a0\u201cWhen I look at the clock business it is really two segments,\u201d Grangi\u00e9 says. \u201cOne, typically in our case, will be focusing on limited-edition and very high-end clocks. The other, which is really going to thrive, is the desk clock business.\u201d This is welcome news for Jaeger-LeCoultre, whose Atmos clock, powered by changes in atmospheric temperature, has been in production since the\u00a01930s. Between 2010 and 2016 it was contemporised by Marc Newson. The designer is now working on another JLC classic, an eight-day desk clock.Still, the term \u201cdesk clock\u201d can be misleading, inasmuch as one of the most\u00a0expensive timepieces of any sort in\u00a0recent years is a desk clock. Made by Patek Philippe, inspired by one owned by gilded-age plutocrat James Ward Packard, it fetched SFr9.5mn (about \u00a38.4mn) at auction in 2021. Meanwhile, the brand\u2019s once-overlooked Dome clocks, enriched with rare handcrafts, are now highly sought after by collectors of the brand\u2019s watches.It\u2019s not just the most established names that are entering the market. This August, Vulcain, relaunched by Guillaume Laidet, unveiled a new and accessibly priced desk clock with three quartz movements based on a historic public clock at what is now the TWA Hotel at JFK airport. \u201cI thought it was a super-cool design,\u201d says Laidet, \u201cand a good way to diversify the business.\u201dIt is this prospect of diversification that\u00a0makes L\u2019\u00c9p\u00e9e\u2019s acquisition by LVMH so fascinating. Can we expect to see clocks\u00a0in champagne and brandy bottles, honouring Mo\u00ebt & Chandon and Hennessy? Set in the\u00a0heels of Berluti shoes, or coddled\u00a0in cashmere by Loro Piana? The possibilities are boundless. \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic LVMH announced that it had acquired Swiza, the owner of Swiss horology brand L\u2019\u00c9p\u00e9e 1839, at the end of June. The statement contained the usual corporate blandishments: it was a \u201cjewel in the crown of haute horlogerie\u201d, there was a \u201cdetermination to preserve and<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":157354,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-157353","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-culture"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157353","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=157353"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157353\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":157355,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157353\/revisions\/157355"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/157354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=157353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=157353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=157353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}