Time stops in Las Vegas - unless you're shopping for incredible wristwatches.
by John B. Holbrook II
Minute repeaters. Perpetual calendars. Splitsecond chronographs and tourbillons. The rarest, most difficult to design and manufacture watch complications ever conceived by the minds of men, and you can find them all in one place—Las Vegas.
While the Strip is a mecca for luxury watch shopping with nearly every hotel and casino offering a dazzling selection of luxury mechanical watches, the Wynn Las Vegas clearly stands apart.
Steve Wynn owns several hotels and casinos in Las Vegas, but the Wynn Las Vegas is the only one to bear his name. The Wynn opened in April 2005 and has quickly established itself as the most opulent, well-appointed casino hotel in the city.
The accommodations and amenities here set the standard in Sin City as does the shopping exclusivity of the Wynn Esplanade, which features the only Oscar de la Renta fashion boutique, the first Jean Paul Gaultier designer store in the United States, and other swank stores.
Wynn & Company Jewelry provides impressive selections of the world’s most exclusive brands including Patek Philippe, A. Lange & Sohne, Jaeger-LeCoultre, Harry Winston, and Vacheron Constantin . . . to name just a few. Perhaps the crowning jewels in Wynn & Company Jewelry are the store’s three Jean Dunand watches—you can see these made-entirelyby- hand works of art in only five locations in the world, and they are in extremely high demand and very short supply.
The Wynn Las Vegas also houses the only freestanding exclusively Rolex boutique in the United States, another horological feather in Wynn’s hat. You will find the size of the Wynn’s Rolex boutique impressive and the selection of unique, hard-to-find Rolex models quite staggering.
The boutique’s hard-to-source models include the special anniversary examples of the emerald and diamond- laden Presidential and the ruby and diamond-encrusted GMT Master II.
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Jean Dunand Pièces Uniques, a relatively new entry to the world of “haute horology” (launched in 2005), bears the name of the famous Swiss Art Deco-era artist. Below the fascinating dial rests an innovative orbital tourbillon mechanical movement (patented caliber IO 200) designed by Christophe Claret.
The IO 200 hand-wound mechanical movement has 215 parts and 14 jewels, and it features balance that vibrates at a frequency of 21,600 vibrations per hour. The design allows for the tourbillon complication (perhaps the most coveted in all of mechanical watchmaking that counters the effects of gravity on the accuracy of the rate-keeping balance wheel) to rotate around the dial, making a complete rotation once every 60 minutes— a one-minute flying tourbillon.
Many will be drawn to the simplicityof a black-dial model with a silver patterned center (model 1884; retail $330,000) and the opulent beauty of the white mother-of pearl outer dial with a diamond dial center (model 1892; retail $345,000).
Both watches feature cases constructed from 18-carat white gold with observation windows built into the case sides including a power-reserve indicator that lets the wearer know how much “power” is left before the main spring winds down and the watch stops.
Instead of featuring a traditional crown on the side of the case to wind and set the watch, the Jean Dunand watches have a flip-up lever on the case back that serves the same function, allowing for a very clean, symmetrical appearance.
The case back also features an additional mechanical complication—a moon phase display. With case diameters of 45mm, these watches reflect the contemporary trend in oversize watches. Each watch also features a domed-shaped, scratch-resistant sapphire crystal with antireflective properties.