While most men have a preference for round watches, women dare to be different. So it is no wonder that a watch like the Girard Perregaux Cat’s Eye is celebrating it’s 10th anniversary already.  With its exceptional oval shape, the Cat’s Eye collection certainly has a unique presence that appeals to women, otherwise the collection wouldn’t still be part of the Girard-Perregaux line-up for ten years and counting. So how do you celebrate such a decade? By what kept you in business for all those years in the first place!

While you can give men a classic design year after year, and in some cases even decade after decade, this is not the case with women’s watches. These require following the pace of fashion, and result in a far more demanding expectation with regards to design. Girard-Perregaux therefore didn’t just go for another dial color, but went up to the next level.

They did this by creating a precious metal framework from which (semi) precious gemstones shoot out over the dial. By choosing an off center point of origin for the rays, the whole watch becomes a vibrant display of motion. Girard-Perregaux offers the anniversary Cat’s Eye in two versions. First there is the one with a dial cut out of polished Onyx, which features a framework set with 73 brilliant cut, colorless diamonds. Although the use of diamonds in watches is quite common, dials cut from semi-precious gemstones are not! In fact, they are becoming increasingly rare and hardly ever pop up in current watch collections. Creating such a dial requires considerable expertise, since one needs to cut a flawless piece of Onyx extremely thin and polish it to perfection until it can take on its duty as dial.

For the second version Girard-Perregaux dyed a mother-of-pearl dial light grey setting the framework with 73 sapphires. The beauty of sapphires is that they are naturally available in virtually any color and shade. Girard Perregaux was therefore able to achieve a gradient effect with sapphires ranging from pastel to bright pink. This does take some effort to accomplish, since it is necessary to  to find sufficient stones with the right color and hue to obtain the desired gradient effect.

Despite being a premier maker of manufacture quartz movements, one that has even profoundly impacted the history of this type of movement, Girard-Perregaux did not go that way for the anniversary Cat Eye watches. Instead they equipped it with the automatic manufacture caliber GP 3300. This movement will certainly please men and women alike because it checks all the boxes for what one should expect from a Haute Horlogerie movement in terms of design, construction and of course finishing.

With a birthday celebration like this, we probably don’t have to be worried on how the Cat’s Eye collection will enter the years ahead of it. By utilizing Girard-Perregaux’s expertise in Haute Horlogerie movements, and combining this with a refreshing approach towards design, while making at the same time the most of applying old school craftsmanship to reach a more contemporary expression, the future looks bright for the Cat’s Eye’s collection.

Martin Green
Eclectic taste in Haute Horlogerie, passion for diamond set watches, loves the classics

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