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Dolce&Gabbana continues to focus on handmade and presents Manifattura Italiana, an exclusive collection of watches that reflects the Designers’ love for the human touch and Italy, two elements at the core of the brand’s DNA.

The art of engraving, inlaying and cutting gemstones undertaken by the finest craftsmen in Italy, make these creations a unique, collectible masterpiece. The inspiration for the six models of the Manifattura Italiana line and their variants comes from Italian cities and their historical and architectural features: the energy of Milan, the beauty of Rome, the charm of Venice, the history of Palermo, the goldsmith tradition of Florence and the passion of Naples.

But while the creativity in the decoration of cases, dials and bracelets is wholly Italian, the engineering accuracy and precision of the mechanism are Swiss. With Manifattura Italiana, Dolce&Gabbana presents DG 01.01, its own exclusive movement entirely assembled by hand by the master watchmakers of Geneva. A further complication has been applied to the mechanical DG 01.02 movement which, with a special device for multiplying the hours wheel, allows a division of the dial into 24 hours. This complication bears a historical reference to the so-called hora italica, a method of calculating time that divided the day into 24 hours of the same duration, starting from sunset, which was considered the twenty-fourth hour.

This system spread in the fourteenth century and can still be admired today in the mechanical clock preserved in the counter-façade of the Duomo of Florence and in the Clock Tower in Piazza San Marco in Venice. From these facts, the two models featuring the DG01.02 movement were named Florence and Venice. The watches come in a numbered limited edition of 10 specimen per variation of model.

Invisible setting

The new Invisible Setting model is also characterized by the DG 01.01 movement. The engineering accuracy and precision of the mechanism is flanked by the precious nature of more than 400 diamonds of excellent quality that adorn the case, dial, crown and deployant clasp. The skill required to implement the invisible setting, which manages to arrange the gemstones without the use of visible settings or claws, makes this watch a unique masterpiece to collect.

Technical notes

The solid and imposing caliber, with its 30.50 mm diameter and 4 mm thickness, is equipped with a self-winding device with new-generation micro-rotor. It offers a power reserve of 58 hours thanks to the device that is extremely sensitive to every single wrist movement. The mainplate and bridges are given a brush-finish by hand and then gold-plated to preserve them from oxidation. The escapement, which uses a balance with a flat spiral, regulates its frequency through the compensation of the balance, while a series of suitably positioned micro-counterweights in gold that can be manually adjusted by the watchmaker, assure better stability of frequency and, consequently, greater precision.

Description of the movement:

Movement diameter: 30.50 mm
Movement height: 4.00 mm
Number of pieces: 209
Number of rubies: 30
Power reserve: 58 hours
Frequency: 21600 vibrations per hour

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MANIFATTURA ITALIANA
“Leonardo” Watch with Dolce&Gabbana 12 - 24-Hour Movement and Moon Phases

Dolce&Gabbana celebrates Leonardo da Vinci on the 500th anniversary of his death by launching a new “Manifattura italiana” timepiece, with the exclusive caliber dg 01.05 movement, assembled by hand by master watchmakers in Geneva.

Over the course of his life, Leonardo ever built a clock. Yet many of his note and drawings collected in the “Codex Atlanticus” at the Veneranda Biblioteca Ambrosiana tell of his passion for instruments of astronomy and the measurement of time. In particular, the Clock Tower of the Abbey of Chiaravalle near Milan, built in 1368 and destroyed in 1592, was studied at length by the genius of the Renaissance.

Fascinated by the complexity of its mechanisms, the peerless master attempted to improve them with the introduction of a worm drive, a gear that would allow him to reduce he number of wheels.

After five centuries of relative obscurity, with the creation of the “Leonardo” timepiece from the “Manifattura italiana” collection, Dolce&Gabbana has brought to light the main features of the extraordinary Chiaravalle clock, the subject of intense cientific speculation by Da Vinci: the main dial reproduces a drawing