LONGINES - Les Elégantes 2010

Longines release their Les Elégantes Collection for 2010. Ladies watches have in recent times mirrored that of their more masculine counterparts, manufacturers have realised that women want the complications, the sporty styling, even the outsize "look-at-me" cuff shredding size synonymous with some men's collections.  Throughout these evolutions the exquisitely crafted quintessentially quaint dress watch has firmly refused to go away.

Art Deco influenced almost everything - you and I see evidence of it almost everyday in the most mundane of items, from its rich sunburst designs to the bold shapes, forms and curves - influences gained partly from the beginnings of global travel when our planet was becoming a smaller place, a time when artists were taking influences from previously unseen Aztec, Egyptian and African designs.  In terms of the watch industry, manufacturers managed to shrink mechanical movements into the tiny confines of ladies wristwatch cases just at the perfect time to produce exquisite pieces ready to be showcased on newly exposed slim wrists in the "roaring twenties".  Over at Ebel, Alice Blum's eye for detail and design won the brand the Grand Prix in the category "High Jewellery Wristwatches" at the 1925 "Exposition Internationale des Arts Decoraties et Industries Modernes" in Paris, the event that would eventually give Art Deco its title.

Surely a time which should continue to be celebrated and one which Longines pay tribute to annually with their Les Elégantes Collection. For 2010 three models of ten pieces each, one rectangle yellow gold, one tonneau in rose gold, one almond shaped in white gold, all in the style of Art Deco and at the heart of each the Longines Calibre L805 mechanical movement.