Vacheron Constantin Reveals Their New Métiers d’Art The Legend of the Chinese Zodiac – Year of the Tiger

Although Chinese New Year technically starts February 1^st of each year, Vacheron Constantin preps ahead and releases their two new Métiers d’Art The Legend of the Chinese Zodiac – Year of the Tiger Limited Edition watches. The detail and designs on the dial are hand-engraved and hand-etched to create an extremely detailed and fascinating look for these two new watches that will be released in Pink Gold and Platinum.

The Tiger is the third of 12-year cycle of animals in the Chinese Zodiac and while Vacheron Constantin has released Year of the Ox, Rat, Pig and Dog previously this is their first Tiger and easily one of the most impressive ones. Tiger symbolizes bravery, competitiveness, power and fear in Chinese Culture and Vacheron Constantin has definitely captured the essence of this nature through their excellent craftsmanship. Vacheron Constantin took inspiration from the Chinese paper-cutting technique known as Jianzhi and used their own Swiss Scherenschnitt which is a Swiss paper-cutting technique.

The details on the dial are made through master engravers and enamellers which is directly etched onto the gold base of the dial and then gone through a process of grand feu enamelling. The Platinum version comes in a case size of 40mm and is made out of Platinum 950, the dial is made out of 22k White gold and comes paired with a dark blue Mississippiensis alligator strap with a deployant buckle made out of the same case material. The Pink gold version comes in a case size of 40mm and is made out of 18K 5N pink gold and the dial is made out of 22K 3N yellow gold and comes paired with a dark brown Mississippiensis alligator strap with a deployant buckle made out of pink gold.

Both watches are powered by the 2460 G4 automatic movement that has a power reserve of 40 hours and features a calendar aperture, day of the week in apertures, hours by apertures and minutes by apertures. Which can be seen through the front of the dial which shows the minutes and hours on the upper half, and the lower half shows the day of the week and date.

Both watches are limited to 12 pieces each worldwide and can only be bought through Vacheron Constantin Boutiques and the price is only available upon request. Due to the amount of work gone into each watch it is understandable that only 12 pieces of each watch will be released and as always it will be interesting to see what Vacheron Constantin will have to offer in the future.