Can men wear jewellery? Jay-Z, Kanye, Diddy; they seem to pull it off, right? Opinion is definitely divided and, personally, I can't abide sovereign rings and St Christopher medallions, yet, strangely, I find full gold teeth 'grillz' hilariously compelling. So jewellery isn't all bad, but there's definitely a danger of over doing it. If it has to be one piece of jewellery, make it your watch, and if you've got some spare change burning a hole in your pocket, get yourself down to the Jewellery Time 2011 bling watch fair at the Paragon, Singapore, which will be running until November 6 and will showcase the creme de la creme of jewellery watchmaking.
This week, we look at some of the highlights of the men's watches on show at the fair, chief among them the Zenith Christophe Colomb Module (right). The watch, at first, is all about diamonds, a lot of them. The beefy 45mm white-gold case features a hugely impressive 504 diamonds and, for good measure, the bezel contains a further 72 of the stones. All that ice, however, masks the technical brilliance that has gone into the timepiece. The Christophe Colomb Module features Zenith's patented Zero Gravity module, which is a full gyroscope for added accuracy placed at the six o'clock position and is the reason behind the sapphire glass dome on the lower part of the watch. Predictably, with all those precious stones, the Christophe Colomb, which has a production run of only 25 pieces, isn't cheap at HK$1.77 million.
The Royal Oak line of watches from Audemars Piguet doesn't do shy and retiring very well. For Jewellery Time 2011, the company has pimped the Royal Oak Grande Complication (left) with an 18-carat gold case studded with 196 diamonds. Under all that glitzy finery, the timepiece is packed with features such as a chronograph and perpetual calendar that indicates the day, date, week, month and moon phase. There are a total of eight indexes on the dial, but you wouldn't know it given the great design work put into this watch. On top of all that, the Royal Oak Grande Complication has a minute repeater, one of the most complicated mechanisms in watchmaking, allowing the timepiece to chime at set intervals. Limited to 25 pieces, the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Grande Complication, unfortunately, isn't available directly in Hong Kong but is definitely worth the trip to Singapore, just remember to bring HK$9 million and change with you.
Something a little more reasonably priced, at HK$1.33 million, is the Jaeger-LeCoultre Master Tourbillon SQ (left). Jaeger LeCoultre is exhibiting up to five men's watches at Jewellery Time 2011 but the Master Tourbillon SQ is by far the best looking, with its snug 39mm case in 18-carat white-gold and the outer rim of the watch featuring 70 diamonds. The SQ of the title is short for squelette, French for 'skeleton', and the Master Tourbillon gives us privileged look inside its intricately built Calibre 978SJ movement. The build quality of this watch is so exceptional that on top of the 48-hour power reserve it is water resistant to an impressive 50 metres. Still not satisfied? The Master Tourbillon also comes with date and second time zone complications on top of the gravity stabilising tourbillon. Limited to 18 pieces, the Jaeger-LeCoultre Master Tourbillon comes with a black alligator leather strap.