Vacheron Constantin: Les Cabinotiers Minute Repeater Perpetual Calendar

In the 18th century, the most experienced Geneva watchmakers exercised their talent in light-filled workshops called ‘cabinets’, located on the top floor of the city’s buildings. Crafting extraordinary complicated bespoke watches, these alchemists of time came to be known as ‘cabinotiers’. Accomplished masters of their art, they cultivated a blend of technical and manual skills backed by vast scientific knowledge and curiosity for new ideas, nurtured by the philosophy of the Age of Enlightenment.

From here comes the Les Cabinotiers department and some of the Maison’s most complicated Masterpieces like the new Les Cabinotiers Minute Repeater Perpetual Calendar.

The challenge for the in-house watchmakers lays in pairing two of the most sophisticated horological complications within an ultra-thin movement measuring just 5.70 mm thick, while ensuring precision, reliability and user friendliness. Among the technical feats accompanying the origins of this watch, the Maison’s Les Cabinotiers department developed a perfectly silent strike governor serving to control the cadence of the hammers in striking the gongs. No less than 438 components, compose this sophisticated horological  ‘alchemy’ within a mechanical manual-winding movement. Beating at a frequency of 21,600 vibrations per hour (3 Hz) and endowed with a 65-hour power reserve, it drives the full set of hours, minutes, day, date, month, leap-year indication, moon phase and minute repeater functions.

The new Les Cabinotiers Minute Repeater Perpetual Calendar model is the latest in a line of watches that have made their mark on their respective eras like, the reference 30020 in 1992, an exceptional creation combining hours, quarters and minutes repeating mechanism with a perpetual calendar and, the famous Calibre 1731 launched in 2013 whose name pays tribute to the birth year of Jean-Marc Vacheron.

Despite the complexity of this watch, the pink gold or white gold case just measures 42mm. The dial, midnight blue or brown, depending on the version, marks the indications of day, date and month in 3 counters appearing in the upper part and the moon phases at 6 o’clock. On the left-hand side of the case, the minute repeater slide.

The new Vacheron Constantin Les Cabinotiers Minute Repeater Perpetual Calendar is combined with a alligator leather strap and 18K white gold folding clasp. The watch is delivered with a corrector pen inside a Les Cabinotiers winding-box made of Makassar ebony wood.