Academy Award-winner Marion Cotillard knows a thing or two about the delicate balance between delivering a technically proficient performance and creating a work of art. The French actress was in New York this week promoting her latest film, Two Days, One Night (at Cannes, her potent performance as a Belgian factory worker rated a 15-minute standing ovation).
Likewise, in the world of luxury watches, there are timepieces that are beloved for their mechanics and then there are objects that function more as jewelry that also happen to tell the time.
Dior La D Mini
Dior’s director of fine jewelry, Victoire de Castellane, introduced the La D line in 2003. The original La D was a playful take on a woman borrowing her boyfriend’s watch, and the style referenced 1970s men’s watch shapes but set with colorful, gem-encrusted designs. They were also powered by a Zenith Elite movement.
In 2009, Dior came out with the 19mm Mini. The smaller size nudges the timepiece more into the category of haute couture than haute horologie, but the impact is no less powerful.
Here, Cotillard is pictured wearing an elegant 2014 model with a diamond-studded steel case, bezel, buckle and crown. With its black mother-of-pearl dial, polished Dauphine hands and metallic “Mirror” goatskin leather strap in white gold it could, at first glance, pass as a bracelet.
