The Bugatti Calandre by Jacob & Co.

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The Story Behind the Release

• The Bugatti Calandre is a table clock created by JACOB & CO in collaboration with Bugatti and Lalique.
• The case is encased in hand-polished crystal produced by Lalique, the celebrated French crystal house.
• A vertical flying tourbillon powers the movement within this sculptural object.
• A 30-mm Jacob-cut gemstone crowns the piece, serving as its visual centrepiece.
• The design reinterprets a century of Bugatti heritage into the format of a table clock.

Three Houses, One Object

The Bugatti Calandre arrives as the product of an unlikely yet precise convergence: JACOB & CO, the New York-born fine jewellery and watchmaking house, bringing together Bugatti’s century-long design language and the hand-polished crystal craft of Lalique. Each partner contributes something irreplaceable to the object. Bugatti supplies the visual grammar, that vocabulary of sculpted form and engineering rigour that has defined the marque since its earliest grand prix machines. Lalique translates that grammar into crystal, a material that demands extraordinary care at every stage of production.

JACOB & CO has, over the past decade, built a distinct identity around large-scale, sculptural timepieces that resist easy categorisation. The Calandre continues that direction, choosing the table clock format rather than the wristwatch, which allows the collaboration to express its ambitions at a scale where both the crystal work and the mechanical movement can be fully appreciated. For collectors in Dubai, Riyadh, and Doha who display significant objects as much as they wear them, that distinction carries real weight. You can visit the official JACOB & CO website for the full catalogue of collaborative pieces.

The Lalique Crystal Enclosure

Lalique’s involvement in the Bugatti Calandre is not merely decorative. The Alsatian house, whose glass and crystal work has occupied a central position in French decorative arts since René Lalique established its reputation in the early twentieth century, contributes the outer enclosure of the clock. The crystal is hand-polished, a process that distinguishes it from machine-finished optical glass and gives the surface its particular depth and clarity. Under strong light, the material behaves like a lens, refracting the movement within and changing character depending on the angle of observation.

That interaction between transparency and light is central to the Calandre’s visual identity. The name itself references the Bugatti radiator grille, a defining element of the marque’s classic coachwork, and the crystal enclosure echoes that architectural quality: structured, precise, and shaped to reveal rather than conceal what lies behind it. For the GCC market, where table objects of this calibre are frequently placed in private residences and offices as conversation pieces, the Lalique component adds a layer of collectible provenance that extends well beyond watchmaking.

The Vertical Flying Tourbillon and the Jacob-Cut Gemstone

A Complication Oriented Differently

Inside the crystal enclosure, the movement is organised around a vertical flying tourbillon. Where conventional tourbillons rotate in the plane of the dial, a vertical configuration orients the cage perpendicular to that plane, making the rotation visible from the front of the piece in a far more theatrical way. The flying designation indicates that the upper bridge normally used to support the tourbillon cage has been removed, leaving the cage apparently suspended in space. Both choices together produce a mechanical display that holds attention without requiring any explanation.

The 30-mm Jacob-Cut Gemstone

At the crown of the Calandre sits a 30-mm gemstone cut in the Jacob cut, a proprietary faceting technique developed by JACOB & CO that maximises light return and produces a distinctive visual signature. At 30 mm in diameter, this is not a discreet accent stone but the dominant visual element of the upper portion of the clock. The cut positions the piece squarely within the tradition of gem-set horology practised by houses such as CHOPARD and others, while the scale of the stone is particular to JACOB & CO’s approach, which consistently operates at dimensions that other maisons tend to avoid.

Why It Matters

The Bugatti Calandre represents a format shift worth noting: three distinct luxury disciplines, automotive design, crystal craft, and haute horology, converging in a single table object. For GCC collectors who already engage with each of these worlds separately, the Calandre offers a single object that speaks to all three. It also signals JACOB & CO’s continued willingness to treat the table clock as a primary format rather than an afterthought, a position few maisons currently hold.

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