Some brands do deep sea; for others it’s motorsport. Vacheron Constantin is, among other things, a metiers d’art brand. It is credited with resurrecting the decorative dial in 2007 with its Masks collection when the Quartz Crisis had all but killed it off. So, it’s not surprising that, to celebrate the opening of its first boutique in Edinburgh, Vacheron Constantin has turned to Scotland’s rich pool of design talent to create a series of objets to display around the new retail space. Entitled the Provenance Collection, it is now on view at the Frederick Street store.

The selection, as well as the materials used, is diverse. There is a gothic-looking scagliola-plaster side table and complementary coasters made by Chalk, a husband-and-wife duo Steven and Ffion Blench. This type of plaster became popular during the Italian Baroque period and is made using gypsum, pearl glue and pigments. In keeping with the theme of “place, time, and heritage”, genuine Edinburgh soot gathered from the dome of General Register House, a grand classical building on Princes Street, has been added to the plaster. Also incorporating physical examples of Edinburgh and its environs are Hazel Frost’s ceramics. Her set of wonderfully Puritanical tea bowls and carafe has been made with clay sourced from six regions of Scotland, including Leith Walk, Edinburgh’s longest street, and Blairadam, an area over the other side of the Firth of Forth. She has also used the coil-building technique – where tubes of clay are layered in coils then moulded – to create two vessels: one smooth and lustrous, the other with a tactile hand-chipped surface; both smoke-glazed with leaves gathered from around Frost’s Edinburgh home.

Taking a slightly different approach is Method Studio – the West Lothian-based woodworking studio founded in 2009 by architect Marisa Giannasi and designer Callum Robinson, who have taken inspiration from the dark, volcanic geology of Castle Rock, in whose shadow the boutique is located. This dark majesty has been transformed into two Codex Mirrors – one small, one large, both surrounded in satiny dark wood woven through with brass. It has also designed a light-wood brolly stand, with its tapered 12-sided form evoking an umbrella as it opens. Rather than Edinburgh, it was Vacheron Constantin’s own exceptional guilloché technique that provided the starting point for textile designer and weaver Araminta Campbell’s soft furnishings. She has blended Scottish heritage with Swiss refinement to create a gorgeous pattern reminiscent of dial engravings made with the finest, sustainably sourced British alpaca.

Finally, Juli Bolaños-Durman has translated her Costa-Rican love of vibrant colour with her knack for seeking out Edinburgh’s trove of abandoned glass into a beautiful perfume bottle-style sculpture inspired by the boutique’s gorgeous stained-glass windows. Using traditional hand-cutting, grinding and engraving, she has taken something abandoned and turned it into something beautiful. Rather like how watchmakers take metal and glass and, in the process of creating a timepiece, bring them to life.

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