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The new MasterGraff Structural Skeleton Automatic is unmistakably Graff, yet there isn’t a diamond in sight.
The high jewelry house lays claim to some of the most densely gemmed and expensive watches ever created, like the $55 million multicolored diamond Graff Hallucination.
Even its men’s watches routinely have a discreet diamond or two.
But the Structural Skeleton, which features a flying tourbillon within a skeletonized dial, communicates its Graff DNA primarily through a distinctive faceted bezel, reflecting the company’s diamond-cutting expertise. This bezel style is a common motif in MasterGraff watches, the most technically complex of the company’s horological creations, but this watch’s faceting detail is cut out, in harmony with the transparency of the dial.
“The watch is immediately a Graff watch, but it’s new, super-light and open,” said Nicolas Sestito, who has been Graff Watches’ chief executive since January 2016. He previously was chief operating officer of Ralph Lauren Watches.
Mr. Sestito was born and raised in the village of Le Brassus in the Vallée de Joux in Switzerland, the heart of the country’s watchmaking.
This week he will introduce the watch, as well as six women’s watch collections, at the Baselworld watch and jewelry fair in Switzerland — marking what he called a moment of change for the nine-year-old watch division. “It is the starting point of our evolution,” he said.
“While watchmaking is about technical skills first of all, jewelry design is about aesthetics and artistry,” said Mr. Sestito, who has spent the last year traveling frequently between London, where the Graff design team is based, and the company’s watchmaking headquarters in Geneva. “Day by day though, we are finding a shared language together. It’s been a good learning curve for all of us.”
The company’s focus at Baselworld this year is on Graff’s core segment, women’s watches.
But Mr. Sestito said he is working on men’s collections for 2018, blending technical achievement with Graff’s customary refinement.
“Complication is not everything,” he said. “We should not be about bulky, complicated details. We need to stick to our segment.”
His task is made simpler, he said, by Graff’s structure. The difference in decision-making between the independent, family-owned company and his former employer, part of the Richemont group, he said, is like a speedboat to a cruise ship.
“It’s an incredible opportunity in this economy to be on a speedboat,” he noted.
And citing the 2016 MasterGraff GyroGraff World, which has an enameled map dial that can be created to order by the company’s enamel artist in Geneva, he said today’s luxury consumers want customizable pieces that they don’t have to wait 10 months to receive. “We can respond in just a few weeks with a bespoke watch,” he said. “For me, that’s luxury today.”