The Steel You Seek

Trust Brad Pitt to call it: a year on from Vacheron Constantin surprising the Watches and Wonders convention with its full yellow-gold, 45th-anniversary reissue of 1977’s ‘222’, the A-lister turns up to 2023’s Wimbledon men’s singles final rocking a vintage version of that watch – in steel. Despite Carlos Alcaraz toppling Novak Djokovic from his Wimbledon reign over five riveting sets, you’d think from all the #watchnerd socials chatter that Pitt’s wristcandy was the big news story that day.

Now, for the 270th anniversary of Switzerland’s oldest continuously operating horloger, celebrations have kicked off in earnest with – you guessed it – a steel 222. Unlike the Hollywood fanboy’s black-dial purchase, this new edition is blue, maintaining its period-correct 37mm dimensions, with the date tweaked slightly so as to not interfere with the circumferential minutes display. The company’s Maltese cross is applied proudly, as usual, at 5 o’clock.

It’s an emblem that seems more poignant than ever. The cross fed into the sculpted bezel design of the sporty ‘Overseas’ collection, launched in 1996 when Vendôme (now subsumed within Richemont Group) revived the VC brand, drawing from the geometry of the 222 – an architecture echoed in the gleaming cladding of the house’s sci-fi manufacture on the outskirts of Geneva, designed by Bernard Tschumi in 2004. The Maltese cross is also – pertinently – a key component of the winding barrel, which ensures a ‘constant force’.

And indeed, Vacheron Constantin has never, ever let up over its 270 years – even if that drive has resulted in the odd pivot to textiles, and, bizarrely, cherry brandy (a history wryly echoed by the top shelf of Vacheron’s ‘Club 1755’ members’ bar, at 45 Old Bond Street).

The 222 isn’t really a sports watch: the up-to-the-minute reference 2455/2 mechanics ticking inside – hand-polished and certified according to Geneva’s strict ‘Poinçon’ codes – put that into stark relief. But the overarching energy of a Vacheron watch has always been more rakishly artistic than that of its contemporaries.

One source of this classical élan is Jean-Marc Vacheron himself, who was something of a Renaissance man, interested in literature, history and philosophy – plus, in a perfect horological storm, fascinated by the rising potential of micro-mechanics in astronomy, chronometry and plain-old connoisseurial grandstanding.

Vacheron Constantin may not have been the first with any of horology’s major ‘complications’, but like Apple – famous for keeping its powder dry before conquering the emerging worlds of personal computers and MP3 players – it has aimed itself towards being, simply, the best (last year’s 63-complication ‘Berkley Grand Complication’ is proof, if proof be needed). This perfectionism applies to the original 222, which joined watchmaking’s sporty 70s fray a full five years after Audemars Piguet’s groundbreaking, octagonal Royal Oak of 1972. That model came at the height of a period of exceptional creativity chez VC, spearheaded by Georges Ketterer, who took over after a brief period of part-ownership by Jaeger-LeCoultre. He was responsible for the introduction of daring designs in the mid-century, such as the ‘Cornes de Vache’, which made an ornate feature of its lugs. It was under Ketterer’s son, Jacques, that Vacheron Constantin joined the 70s jetset: the 222 was all flashy metal, from its slinky bracelet to an ornate jigsaw of case facets designed to catch the rays of a setting Riviera sun.

As witty as it might seem – celebrating a palindromic 222nd anniversary and naming the watch thus – you suspect the reality was different: Vacheron simply couldn’t afford to sit on its hands for three years until it had a number of candles to blow out that was divisible by five. A bold advance on younger clientele was needed to ride out the ongoing ‘Quartz Crisis’, and that market was of course in full swing thanks to the outré penmanship of Gérald Genta – the famed ‘eyes’ of Audemars Piguet and Patek Philippe’s sporty disruptors.
 

With eerie prescience, for his own ‘sporty-chic’ bid, Jacques Ketterer didn’t default to Genta. Instead, he sought the talents of one Jörg Hysek, who was just 24 at the time. Something of a wunderkind, Hysek had come to Geneva from East Berlin in 1960, just before the Wall, and just like Jean-Marc Vacheron himself, he was at once a creative, an academic and an engineer. He studied micromechanics at the Biel Technical School for two years, then enrolled in the Vocational School for Watchmakers in Pforzheim before studying sculpture at London’s Central School of Art and Design. After returning to Switzerland he received quite the hands-on tutelage: four years designing at Rolex, before founding his namesake brand (which still operates in Lussy-sur-Morges, near Lake Geneva).

“Gérald Genta was a true artist, which meant he had a fiercely independent spirit, along with the strong vision and character that certainly came with it,” explains Nathalie Marielloni, who is Vice Curator at La Chaux-de-Fonds' Musée International d'Horlogerie – diplomatically, one senses. “Jörg Hysek was much younger. He was working under a businessman in Jacques Ketterer, who knew exactly what he wanted from the 222. So Hysek's work for Vacheron was much more bespoke, much more discreet.” Marielloni isn't wrong. Rather than a ‘Eureka!’ moment, or Bordeaux-oiled napkin sketch, Hysek sold various designs to Ketterer, and his team got on with the one they liked best.
 

The 222 featured in VC’s catalogue for a mere seven years, before commencing a 38-year hibernation-cum-gestation into cult, collector catnip. Given 1977’s dramatic stylistic switch at the brand, it is nevertheless impressive to read from factory records that more than 1,300 24mm quartz ladies versions, around 1,000 34mm ‘mid-size’ and about 700 37mm ‘Jumbo’ two-handers managed to sell in that time.

“It certainly earned some contemporary edge, but the 222 was not as disruptive as it might have been for Vacheron – after all, quite rightly, they had to preserve its DNA.” Marielloni is taking the words out of the man’s mouth; as Hysek himself opined: “I wanted to design an elegant sporty timepiece while striking the right balance... to fit in with Vacheron Constantin's refined universe.”

Something people often get wrong about the 222 is that the watch’s stainless steel meant it was lacking in ‘luxury’. However, the fact that Vacheron parallel-launched the 222 in gold as well as steel only goes to show that steel wasn't the entry-level metal it is now.

“Back then – especially if you consider the 222’s complex, multi-faceted construction – steel was seen as highly technical, a really modern material,” insists Marielloni. “If you compare the early prices of white- and yellow-gold Nautiluses or Royal Oaks, the steel models weren't cheaper.”

Today, steel's novelty is for a different reason: the mechanical watch has come back from the doldrums, reinvented as a luxury investment through and through. A steel watch from the likes of Vacheron Constantin is now a rare thing – which might explain the new steel 222's equally lofty £30,800 price tag. But beyond the commercial, what’s more heartening is Nathalie Marielloni’s take on 2025’s 222. By her own admission, she seems as much of a fan as Brad Pitt: “If it’s now in steel? It’s surely here to stay.”