Chanel J12 Automaton Caliber 6

The house of Chanel puts serious efforts into creating complex products. The Chanel J12 Automaton Caliber 6 debuted at the Watches & Wonders 2024 exhibition, presenting a humorous but mechanically skillful animation by founder Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel at work. The watch is part of the Chanel Couture O’CLOCK capsule collection, which pays homage to Coco and her famous couture workshop on Cambon Street.

Released in 1999, the J12 became a pioneer in the production of ceramic watches. She popularized this material in watchmaking. After 25 years and dozens of iterations, the J12 remains Chanel’s flagship ceramic watch collection, always in black, white or mixed colors.

The high-strength black ceramic case Chanel J12 Automaton Caliber 6 is offered in an unusual matte finish, has a diameter of 38 mm and a thickness of 13.65 mm, including sapphire crystal. The case ring now has a smooth chamfer, for the first time for a J12 watch. The black steel bezel is decorated with 48 square baguette-cut diamonds, and the black crown is decorated with one round-cut diamond. The case is waterproof to 50 meters and is combined with a matching black ceramic bracelet with links that, like the case ring, are also slightly beveled. A triple folding clasp is attached to the bracelet.

The dial is full of recognizable motifs and aesthetic codes of the fashion house. It has touches of tweed, camellia flowers and quilted surfaces, and Coco is in the center, dressed in her most famous outfits, including a Chanel suit, peep-toe shoes and a bow hat. The action takes place in the workshop of Mademoiselle Privé haute couture, where the founder is working on a partially finished outfit hanging on a mannequin with the CHANEL logo. Pressing the button protruding from the case at the “8 o’clock” position activates the automaton, and Miss Gabriel comes to life: her hand with scissors moves up and down, and the other hand rests on her hip, swaying from side to side. The adjacent dummy is also moving up and down. In the center of the dial are brass hour and minute hands, finished with black electroplating.

This mini mechanical show, conceived by Arnaud Chasteng, director of Chanel’s watchmaking studio, was made possible by the Calibre 6, the first Automaton movement developed and assembled at Chanel’s watch factory in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland. The sapphire crystal back cover shows the skeletonized architecture of the circular movement, based on the Calibre 1, released in 2016.

The branded round axles, wheels, gears and stones are part of 355 Caliber 6 components — about twice as many as in other Chanel mechanisms, and this is a real achievement, given the compact 38 mm case diameter in which they are housed. The manual winding mechanism operates at a frequency of 28,800 beats per hour (4 Hz) and provides the watch with a power reserve of about 72 hours. There is an 18-carat white gold frame around the sapphire crystal on the back of the case, which is engraved with inscriptions.

The new Chanel J12 Automaton Caliber 6 watch is charming, daring and, above all, creative. Chanel J12 Automaton Caliber 6 is available in a limited edition of 100 copies.