Les Cabinotiers
History of the line
The name "Les Cabinotiers" comes from the cabinotiers, the watchmaking craftsmen who in 18th-century Geneva worked in small workshops — the "cabinets" — set up on the top floor of houses, where natural light was more plentiful and essential for precision work. Men who combined manual skill with a scientific curiosity fuelled by the ferment of the Enlightenment, capable of creating complications of extraordinary technical and artistic refinement: a model of craftsmanship that Vacheron Constantin claims as a direct part of its identity.
Throughout its history the manufacture has made bespoke commissions for private clients, including leading American collectors of the early 20th century such as James W. Packard and Henry Graves Jr., both known for commissioning watches of extraordinary complexity from some of the great Geneva manufactures of the time. It was only in 2006, however, that Vacheron Constantin gave this activity a dedicated structure, creating Les Cabinotiers as an autonomous department entirely focused on unique pieces and bespoke creations.
The department today has three main strands: signature creations, unique pieces presented periodically by the manufacture with complications such as astronomical mechanisms, armillary tourbillons or grandes sonneries; the bespoke haute horlogerie service, which allows clients to work with the Maison's craftsmen to create a watch reflecting their own identity; and artistic collaborations, which include reproducing on dials works from institutions such as the Louvre or the MET in New York through enamelling and engraving techniques.
Line features
Key milestones of the line
Among the great collectors who commissioned complicated watches from the Geneva manufactures of the early 20th century, Henry Graves Jr. is remembered today above all for his historic rivalry with James W. Packard: a long-distance contest to own the world's most complicated pocket watch, which collective memory more often associates with another manufacture, but which illustrates well the kind of clientele and technical ambition that the bespoke commission service, now part of Les Cabinotiers, was already serving a century ago.