The Blancpain Saint Valentin 2010 Ladies Watch

The design of ladies' watches is a niche often neglected by some of the luxury watch houses, not so at Blancpain where the Le Brassus manufacture continues its pioneering attitude to the creation of women's timepieces. In 1998 the brand presented the first ladies' fly-back chronograph - a chronograph which makes immediate reuse of the chronograph hand possible after resetting the hands to zero by pressing once on the push piece rather than the three separate movements of stopping, resetting to zero and restarting the hand. It was developed for use in situations requiring quick succession measurement of time intervals such as in aviation.

This innovative movement the Calibre F185 was used to power the "Saint-Valentin 2009" a functional yet ultimately feminine sports timepiece. An elegant combination of mother of pearl and rubies, the Blancpain Saint-Valentin 2009 features a 34mm case, mother of pearl dial with a captivating heart created from rubies, Arabic hour-markers and totally modern hollowed cone-shaped hands. In true romantic fashion, the aperture display showing the date displays only the 14th day of each month in crimson red. Presented on a hand sewn white alligator leather strap the watch is a limited edition release of 99 pieces.

The "Saint-Valentin 2010" could not be more different to the previous years symbolic release. With a completely new pear-shaped white gold case shape adorned with over 500 diamonds and pink sapphires the piece is somewhere between a wristwatch and a stunning item of jewellery. A pink and white mother of pearl dial forms a captivating heart shape and the hour markers are diamond set including a heart-cut diamond at the 12 0'clock position. This charming ladies watch features the Calibre 615 "Lady Bird" movement, first manufactured in 1956 and still considered to be the world's smallest round self-winding movement and its petite form is revealed through a sapphire crystal case back.

The "Saint-Valentin 2010" comes supplied with two satin straps, one black and one white and as a further tribute to the most romantic date in the calendar is a limited release of just 14 pieces worldwide.