Would you rather go on a gem-studded safari tour through Cartier’s latest high jewelry collection or dive into the until-now-untold history of Rolex’s Oyster Perpetual Submariner?
If you’d rather take a peek over the shoulder of the three generations at the helm of British jeweler David Morris or look at Chaumet through the lens of generations of photographers who captured its creations, that’s an option too.
All you need is to reach for one of the four freshly released coffee table books on watches and jewelry selected by WWD here.
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“Cartier, Nature Sauvage, High Jewelry and Precious Objects”
A panther leaping through an ice floe. A flamingo hiding in geometric swirls. A turtle leaving a trail of gold in its wake. Snakes’ scales slithering down the column of the neck.
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In its “Nature Sauvage” high jewelry collection unveiled in May, Cartier explored the richness of the animal kingdom through figurative yet fresh stories that set animals in unusual scenes and imaginary locales.
“The surprise is less in the choice of the animals but rather in the context and the story around them,” the jeweler’s creative director of high jewelry Jacqueline Karachi told WWD at the time. “The animals blend into their environment to the point of hybridization and that was something particularly interesting to us.”
In this volume commemorating the high jewelry collection, this bestiairy is examined closely by writer François Chaille and coauthor Hélène Bouillon, an Egyptologist who serves as head curator and director of conservation, exhibitions and publishing at the Louvre-Lens museum.
Page after page, each jewel becomes the protagonist of a story of superlative gemstones and the Cartier touch, captured in all their intricately detailed glory through plentiful imagery. But it’s the nifty ways in which Karachi and the high jewelry studio captured the mood and personality of each creature that shines through these glossy images.
256 pages, 95 euros
Published by Flammarion
“Chaumet, Photographers’ Gaze”
This latest opus on Chaumet is a retrospective on the photography of its jewelry, seen through the lenses of greats such as Guy Bourdin, Bettina Rheims, Cecil Beaton — and turn-of-the-century house head Joseph Chaumet.
Capturing jewelry in pictures might be par for the course today, but when he created his own photography laboratory at the tail end of the 19th century, it made Chaumet something of a maverick.
Since then, the Place Vendôme jeweler has amassed an expansive heritage that spans some 211,000 photographs, 34,000 film negatives and 33,000 autochrome plates, an ancestor of color photography.
Set amid a wealth of press editorials running from 1934 to 2020 are the insights of jewelry historian and journalist Carol Woolton, Palais Galliera’s photography curator Sylvie Lécallier and Flora Triebel, curator in charge of 19th-century photography collection in the department of prints and photography of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France.
Two series commissioned especially for the occasion, by photographers Karim Sadli and Elizaveta Porodina, are given pride of place as collectible covers of the book.
240 pages, $85
Published by Citadelles & Mazenod
“The World of David Morris: The London Jeweler”
Opening this coffee table tome is akin to pushing open the door of David Morris’ New Bond Street flagship to explore every corner of it, from the creations offered in store to the fifth-floor workshops.
Throughout this richly illustrated volume are encounters with the pieces, places and people who have contributed to shaping the house into what it is today, anecdotes brought to life by the writing of veteran jewelry editor Annabel Davidson.
There’s of course Jeremy Morris, the son of founder David and his wife Suzette Morris, who is now chief executive officer and creative director of the British jeweler.
But there are plenty more, including the moment when a call from Elizabeth Taylor helped cinch a deal with a Swiss watchmaker and the time when three European queens turned up at the store to shop — sans cash.
It’s also an opportunity to hear from those who underpin these creations, like Alan Pither, a veteran artisan of 25 years whose son Lewis now also works for the jewelry house.
Signing the foreword of this family album of sorts are the next and third generation of the brand, sisters Cecily and Phoebe Morris, respectively brand content manager and special projects coordinator of the family-owned jeweler.
256 pages, $115
Published by Rizzoli
“Oyster Perpetual Submariner, the Watch That Unlocked the Deep”
First in a series that will explore Rolex’s star designs, this 252-page volume is the first authorized history of the Oyster Perpetual Submariner model — and dispels a number of myths around it.
Author Nick Foulkes dives into the birth of this design that revolutionized the divers watch genre and became the basis for subsequent models, such as the 1967 Sea-Dweller, the Rolex Deepsea from 2008 and the Oyster Perpetual Deepsea Challenge, a 2022 release that can descend below 36,000 feet.
Supported by a wealth of archival materials, which Rolex has traditionally kept close to its chest, Foulkes explores the technical odyssey that led to the birth of this timepiece guaranteed waterproof to 330 feet and internally dubbed the “Submariner” in 1953. He also chronicles the adventures of those who tested its prototypes, from the British Royal Navy to Dimitri Rebikoff, a French engineer and pioneer of underwater photography.
A surprising twist in the tale is the inclusion of production estimates, with tallies based on the brand’s archives, for a number of its models, making the book a must-have for watch afficionados and collectors.
252 pages, 125 euros
Published by Wallpaper