From left to right: Hermès Arceau L'Heure de la Lune, £20,500, hermes.com; Chaumet Les Pierres de Rêve de Chaumet, £27,100, chaumet.com; Dior Grand Bal Plume Wild, £22,700, dior.com; Corum Coin Watch, £18,700, corum-watches.com; Harry Winston Premier Precious Micromosaic Automatic, POA, harrywinston.com; Piaget Altiplano Meteorite, £24,300, piaget.com; Jaquet Droz Petite Heure Elephant Minute Mosaic, £78,150, jaquet-droz.com; Gucci G-Timeless Automatic, £2,000, gucci.com. Dior, which has a history as a horological entomologist (past Grand Bal watch collections have included marquetry of scarab beetle wing) now mixes animal and mineral with the new Grand Bal Plume Wild. Black feathers swish backwards and forwards on the signature embellished oscillating weight that sits on the dial, while the highly unusual hardstone zoisite forms a speckled, animal-print-like backdrop, for an exotic, punkish composition. Gucci, meanwhile, takes a disc of lapis lazuli and studs its deep royal blue with gold bees, a favourite motif of creative director Alessandro Michele. Chaumet also turns its hand to geology, sourcing obscure minerals for a collection that capitalises on unknown hardstone beauty. Rhodonite, pietersite, azurite and chrysocolla all feature, highly polished on the lapidaries' wheel to reveal their otherworldly inclusions like miniature painterly landscapes. Hermès and Piaget seek the ultimate in other-planetary keepsakes, with dials made of meteorite, the latter managing to keep the stone to a mere whisper's depth inside the ultra-thin Altiplano case. Finally, Corum turns numismatist with a dial that's helpfully created from the perfect proportions of a gold coin (Bulgari also has form here with its Monete collection of jewellery and watches). Just as explorers and adventurers from past centuries strived to seek out the truly unique and special, so watchmakers today understand the role and importance of this eclecticism. With exacting timepiece collectors there is no place for the ordinary or mundane - and so the mindset of those intrepid, treasure-hunting travellers lives on into the here and now. Sign up for the Telegraph Luxury newsletter for your weekly dose of exquisite taste and expert opinion.
The trend for incorporating ancient techniques and exotic materials from the natural world into Swiss high-end horology watches continues. Just as Victorian Grand Tour travellers collected mosaics, precious minerals and fascinating specimens, watchmakers are incorporating similar materials and traditional skills to make unique dials. One of Harry Winston’s latest "jewellery" watches uses a 2,000-year-old micro-mosaic technique. A new watch by watchmaker Harry Winston is made entirely out of micromosaics – tiny pieces of glass that were used in medieval times to create intricate designs. Meanwhile, Chaumet looks to geology for its inspiration, employing pietersite, chrysocolla, azurite and rhodonite, polished to a gem-like finish.