American 1921 Pink Gold

The American 1921 is Vacheron Constantin's modern version of a wristwatch made for the American market in the 1920s. It is a hand-wound dress watch, with a pink-gold case, a leather strap and a face set at an angle.

Its outline is almost square, but the sides bow outward and the corners are rounded. Watchmakers call this a cushion case. At 40 millimeters across, it leaves a broad gold surround outside the round, silver-colored face. The black numbers curl at their ends, and the hands have little open circles near their tips. A narrow track of minute markings runs around the outside.

The modern watch has a sapphire window in the back, through which its hand-wound movement can be seen. A full wind gives a stated 65 hours of running time. The whole case is just over eight millimeters thick, so its rounded outline is much broader than it is deep.

Then there is the angle. Twelve sits near the upper-right corner, rather than beside the top of the strap. The winding crown occupies that corner too. The hour numbers and minute track have turned together, so reading them still works in the familiar way. What changes is the direction from which they appear upright. Vacheron describes this as a way to read the time without turning the wrist.

Not everything on the face follows the same angle. The seconds have a separate little dial toward the lower right. The hour numerals lean with the main display, but the 60 at the top of the seconds dial points straight up the case.