Tourneau Fifth Avenue flagship

The brief

A watch flagship on Fifth Avenue sells on detail, and the stone has to be as precise as what sits in the cases. Tourneau asked us for every stone element on the sales floor: the display cases, the watch bar, the feature tables and the brand back walls where the watchmakers' logos hang.

Made in Italy, built with a Swiss millworker

The display cases were designed as pieces of furniture: stone set into fine millwork, built by a Swiss millworker. So the stone could not simply be cut to size and sent. We made every piece at our factory in Italy, working position by position with the millworker. Their shop drawings went straight to the factory floor, each stone part was cut to them, and every piece was marked with the number of the case it belonged to before it was crated.

Some of the cases needed honeycomb-cut pieces that fit together like a puzzle. The watch bar was finished in Crystal Ice, a bright white stone, with Nero Assoluto and onyx elsewhere on the floor.

Tables with brass inlays

The centerpieces are custom tables with brass inlaid into the stone. The inlay work is slow and exact, and it was the hardest part of the job. Our inspector in Italy sent photos from the factory floor as each table came together, and the largest one was made in two pieces so it could travel safely and be joined on site.

Getting it to Fifth Avenue

Everything crossed the Atlantic in three containers and 23 crates, each piece labeled with its case number. Our installer took delivery, finished each stone unit and handed it to the millworker, case by case, so the store came together in order and on schedule.

The result

The flagship opened in the summer of 2021, and the inlaid table was featured in WWD. Tourneau's store-design team came back to us for more: Crystal Ice brand panels for the IWC wall at Roosevelt Field, the stone panels at the Bucherer TimeMachine on 57th Street, and a Sahara Noir wall wrap there in 2022.