Feather Marquetry and Bulgari Divas’ Dream Peacock

At Watches & Wonders earlier this year, amongst their other releases Bulgari announced the Divas’ Dream Peacock. This is one which caught my eye – not for something I would necessarily wear on my wrist, but more for being something that is an objectively beautiful piece, and unique with a dial made from peacock feathers.

Before this release, I had never seen anything like this before. This dial is created using a somewhat lesser-known craft called feather marquetry, and for this article I wanted to take a look at this craft and what it entails, and then look at how it has been used to create Bulgari’s Divas’ Dream Peacock release.

What is feather marquetry?

Feather marquetry is an artisanal craft which involves practitioners of the craft (called plumassières) using the feathers of birds, preparing and arranging them artistically to create something else. This can range from something small affixed to a bag, through to jewellery such as earrings and watches, or even incorporated into clothing.

Before seeing the release of the Divas’ Dream Peacock, I had never seen anything like this before, and reading about the craft and what has gone into making these particular watch dials, quite simply blew my mind.

When I researched feather marquetry for this article, it was interesting to see some other relatively recent examples of watchmaking which have incorporated the craft, including Harry Winston’s Premier Feathers collection of watches and Piaget Altiplano pieces with unique feather marquetry dials (see above), which even earned a place in the pre-selection for the GPHG Artistic Crafts category in 2017.

How is feather marquetry done?

The process behind feather marquetry is painstaking, and the attention to detail is meticulous at every level. With the Divas’ Dream Peacock, Bulgari say a single dial takes around 500 individual feathers to put together, which are all matched according to their colour, texture, and of course need to piece together seamlessly to create the overall effect – any adjacent feathers which don’t match would stand out and be immediately obvious.

Once you have sufficient feathers to hand, the next step in the overall process is to clean and steam them, to clean and restore them to their full glory. They are then delicately pressed under small to ensure the feathers lay absolutely flat, before then being glued and cut into geometric shapes, using a metal template designed for this purpose to ensure uniformity across the board – again, any rough edges or mis-sized portions would immediately stand out once amongst the others on the dial, so the plumassière’s attention to detail must be painstakingly thorough.

The last check before the pieces are selected for a final dial is to place them alongside each other on a mock-up, which allows you to check which pieces should go where in order to get the best overall effect.

Having established the process behind the craft, let’s take quick a look at the watch which so caught my eye from Watches & Wonders that I was lucky enough to be able to see up close.

Bulgari Divas’ Dream Peacock Dischi

As I mentioned earlier, I think this has to be one of the most objectively beautiful haute horologie pieces I’ve ever seen. Given it is limited to only 50 pieces worldwide, I never thought I would get the opportunity to look at one close up, however a visit to the Bulgari flagship boutique on Bond Street served to prove me wrong!

With this piece, the star of the show is of course the feather marquetry dial. On the Divas’ Dream Dischi this comprises two discs – one in blue and one in green, reminiscent of the distinctive pattern found on peacock feathers.

To ensure that the feather marquetry remains front and centre, in place of hands the discs are adorned with a single round and single pear-shaped diamond, used to indicate the hours and minutes respectively as the discs themselves rotate over time. The bezel and the edge of the inner green disc are adorned with diamonds as well, interspaced with a blue sapphire to mark the hours in place of batons or indices – the time displayed on the photo above is approaching 10:20.

Being able to get hands on with this piece, I was able to really get a closer look at the feather marquetry and the effect it creates, which I found myself appreciating even more after understanding more about the artisanal craft behind it; much like an appreciation of the level of finishing on high-end watch movements such as those from Laurent Ferrier or Romain Gauthier grows once you understand the effort and skill required to achieve it.

I mean, come on. Just look at this dial:

Whilst the rest of the watch is somewhat playing second fiddle to the utterly magnificent dial, it is equally just as beautifully finished with diamonds adorning not only the bezel, but also the caseband and lugs of the gold case, too. The automatic BVL 308 movement driving the Dischi discs is visible as well through the sapphire caseback.

If you placed two contrasting pieces of feather marquetry adjacent to one another on the dial, they need to complement one another. Likewise the constituent parts of the watch – if you had such an incredible dial framed in anything less than the indulgent luxury it warrants, it too would just not look right.

There are three different editions of the Bulgari Divas’ Dream, including the feather marquetry Dischi that I got to see, the Peacock Diamonds with a champlevé enamel dial with a peacock design on a mother-of-pearl dial, and a 10-piece limited edition Peacock Tourbillon Lumière with a skeletonised dial which is still adorned with feather marquetry and diamonds.

Suffice it to say, each edition absolutely lives up to the “Divas’ Dream” name and would be at home on the most glamourous of any world stages.

Now, of course the Divas’ Dream Dischi (or any of the others for that matter) is not really a watch I would wear myself, but – my goodness – if I had all the money in the world, I would absolutely love to own one such that I would be able to just regularly hold it and appreciate it for what it is!

In Summary

As you have probably guessed, I love this watch. Just about everything about it is objectively beautiful, and I cannot help but marvel at the craft and skill that went into creating the dial. I am incredibly thankful that Bulgari saw fit to incorporate feather marquetry into this year’s releases, having opened my eyes to a craft I never before knew existed.

I feel rather quite fortunate to have had the opportunity to see these up close, and it certainly isn’t something I am likely to forget – so a special thankyou to David at Bulgari in Bond Street for taking the time to show me this piece.

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