To say the Dune: Part Two premiere in London’s Leicester Square was a blowout of sci-fi style is a bit of an understatement. The stars of the new film turned out in incredible looks: Zendaya in the iconic 1995 Thierry Mugler robot haute couture; Florence Pugh in a slinky hooded cowl dress by Valentino; Rebecca Ferguson in futuristic Fendi haute couture. But those were the actresses we’ve already known to be on the cast. Anya Taylor-Joy, on the other hand, was one actress whose presence confirmed her long-rumoured presence and role in the Denis Villeneuve-directed movie.
Anya Taylor-Joy chose an almost monastic, classical look from Dior haute couture. Word now is that she will play Alia Atreides in the film, the younger sister to Timothée Chalamet’s Paul Atreides. The character in the Dune universe is a frighteningly precocious child, born with the full extents of Bene Gesserit powers. The trend for celebrities launching films these days is to dress almost in character. See, for example, the entirety of Margot Robbie’s press and awards tour wardrobe for Barbie. Here, Taylor-Joy’s white pleated silk gown from Dior was completed with a cotton-organdie cape that framed her face—evocative, perhaps, of the purity of a newborn.
What’s extra cool about Taylor-Joy’s red carpet look is the piece of micro-mechanical wonder on her wrist. The actress accessorised with fairly understated jewellery: a combination of rings on her fingers, and what appears at first glance to be a double-row tennis bracelet. Look closer, though, and you might notice that the bracelet is in fact a teeny, tiny watch by the Swiss brand Jaeger-LeCoultre, which the actress is an ambassador of.
The watch itself is a Jaeger-LeCoultre 101 Reine, which comes from the brand’s 101 collection of jewellery watches powered by the house’s signature miniaturised movement. It takes its name from the baguette-shaped Calibre 101, a mechanical winding movement which was developed in 1929 by the brand for use on feminine jewellery watches. Developed more than half a century before computer-aided designs and technology could aid the process, the 101 is a feat of miniaturisation. It measures just 14mm long, less than 5mm wide, and weighs in at barely a gram.
The 101 movement is now close to a century old, but its internals have changed little since 1929. There have been improvements in materials and machining, but the minuscule heart of these watches have remained the same in size and their mechanical architecture. Each of the 98 components that go into it are custom-produced and adjusted, and only a few dozen are produced by Jaeger-LeCoultre each year. The 101 movement is now in its fourth generation, yet can still claim to be the smallest mechanical movement in the world and one of the oldest that’s still in production.
It’s gorgeous enough on its own as a piece of jewellery. The Reine model that Taylor-Joy wore is crafted in white gold, set with two rows of diamonds, and has its winding crown fixed on the underside to maintain the illusion. Spacefaring civilisations and spaceships may still be the far off stuff of sci-fi dreams, but marvels of technology in a watch like that make the fantasy feel real.
