The young Gabrielle Chanel didn't wear a watch. She lived her life and her time as she created them, in the most naïve contempt of appropriateness and common practices: the hours didn't have the same length for her as for most people. She already understood that the watch, a key object in the century of speed, should be solid, ordinary, and fine. The post-war years confirmed her taste for large Swiss watches worn with white bracelets, which she often offered to her friends. Can it be a coincidence that she first wanted to live in Switzerland, the world¹s cradle of watch making, when Paris no longer recognized her, before making Lausanne her last dwelling place?
