LOOKING SKYWARDS

Bell & Ross kicks off the year with unique creations that are also outstanding value propositions.. Fabien de Nonancourt shares more about the brand's distinctive perspective.

- Words: LYNETTE KOH

When some watch brands decide to make a timepiece for women, what they do is add diamonds to a smaller model.

Most of the time, these diamonds are used as hour indexes on the dial, and/or placed on the bezel. When it came to creating one of their feminine timepieces, however, the Bell & Ross team took a different approach.

In town recently to present the French brand's latest offerings, Bell & Ross MD Fabien de Nonancourt began our session by showing me the BR-05 36mm Blue Diamond Eagle. Housed in the brand's smallest BR-05 case, the watch features an aventurine-glass dial symbolising the night sky. Set against this evocative backdrop are 18 diamonds: Along with diamonds marking the hours, diamonds of different sizes are arranged in a pattern representing the Eagle constellation. (The brighter stars in the constellation are represented accordingly by larger diamonds.)

"Why the Eagle?" asks de Nonancourt rhetorically. “One of the things Bell & Ross is about is aviation. So it’s about being in the sky, and the king of the sky is the eagle.” Indeed, the watch is an appealing and original take on the classic women's diamond timepiece, with a very reasonable price tag of $6,800. “We could have gone with the usual ways of putting in the diamonds, but everybody does the same thing, so we decided to go for an unusual way of setting them.”

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