In 1956, Blancpain — then led by Betty Fiechter, the first woman to head a Swiss watch manufacture — squeezed a mechanical movement into the tiny Ladybird Bullet and changed what a woman’s watch could be. Seventy years on, the maison has revived that radical idea as the Lady B: a 19mm polished sphere, entirely without lugs, that sits somewhere between timepiece and jewel.
Blancpain is emphatic that this is no reissue but a reinterpretation — “the contemporary reinterpretation of a simple and radical idea born in 1956: to fit fine watchmaking into an object the size of a jewel.” Inside the little globe beats the automatic Calibre 615, a proper manufacture movement of 180 components with a silicon balance spring, Côtes de Genève decoration and 38 hours of reserve — no quartz shortcuts here.
The case comes in stainless steel (CHF 9,500) or 18k red gold (CHF 14,500), threaded onto a double-tour calf strap offered in seven shades from coral to mocha, worn wrapped like a bracelet.
In an era when women’s mechanical watchmaking too often means shrinking a men’s model and setting diamonds on it, the Lady B’s confidence lies in its geometry: a perfect sphere, a hidden movement, a nod to the woman who ran Blancpain when that was unthinkable. It joins the permanent collection — and gives the maison’s boutiques in the Gulf a genuinely original conversation piece for the season ahead.
