Chanel J12,
orig­i­nally uploaded by alexde­car­valho.

My post on the Vertu Phone was an unex­pected hit, so here’s a  post on another “object of desire”. Pic­tured is a friend’s white auto­matic, 2004 sports model, “high-tech” ceramic J12 watch by Chanel.

First launched in 2000, the best­selling J12 is the brand’s first sports watch. The uni­sex time­piece comes in black or white and in a dia­mond or sports model. The bezel can also be ingrained with pink or blue sap­phires and lim­ited ver­sions exist with emer­alds, rubies or dia­monds. You can also order a black ceramic model with bright red rubies … appar­ently it looks very sharp (to be worn by the For­mula 1 jet-set?). By the way, the list price of the pic­tured model is 2,870 Euros but
will sky­rocket up to 150,000 Euros for the dia­mond, ruby, emer­ald and sap­phire models.

Besides being a lux­ury item, might this watch also be con­sid­ered a gad­get? Accord­ing to Philippe Mougenot, direc­tor of hor­logery and jew­elry at Chanel,

“The idea of the J12 was to be at the high­est level in terms of
tech­nique and audac­ity in a mar­ket that is sat­u­rated. It is about
tech­nique, mate­ri­als, fin­ish and a com­plex watch face.” (IHT, 15 April 2004)

The watch is high-tech not for its inner work­ings — which of course are Swiss made and top of the line –  but for the inno­va­tion in the use of the unscratch­able ceramic NASA uses for space appli­ca­tions. The same type of ceramic can also be found in indus­trial boil­ers and foundries. This means the watch can be worn in high pres­sure envi­ron­ments, will with­stand div­ing depths of 250 meters and is not affected by time (which I guess is quite appro­pri­ate for a watch). The ceramic makes it pos­si­ble to make the watch and watch­band in white, which is unusual and stun­ning in itself. So take your pick: lux­ury item, fash­ion acces­sory or gad­get? Depends on the user’s demo­graphic, I’d say.

The J12 also fea­tures a sap­phire crys­tal face, smooth hand move­ment and a uni­di­rec­tional tung­sten car­bide and sap­phire bezel. You might notice the bezel on the pic­tured watch was chipped dur­ing a fall and will be sent in for repairs. The ceramic band and face­plate were unharmed.

Tech­no­rati Tags: lux­ury, watch

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