No, the baguette movement isn’t a trending lifestyle choice to consume more of the beloved French bread. Instead, it refers to the elongated watch movement which saw its heyday during the Art Deco era in the 1920s. Although the industry always tends back towards round movements in the long run, the baguette movement has seen a revival thanks to Corum and its Golden Bridge watches, which were first introduced in 1980. Corum’s baguette movement was designed by watchmaker Vincent Calabrese, who had envisioned a simple shape and design to show off the watchmaker’s expertise. His version of the baguette movement won a gold medal at the International Exhibition of Inventions in Geneva in 1977, and was bought by Corum in a deal which reportedly took only a few hours to finalise.

Corum’s Golden Bridge Dragon featured here has, as its name suggests, a dragon entwined with the vertically aligned, hand-winding Calibre CO 113 movement. The dragon is actually an entirely separate structure within the watch, and carved from red gold after a rough outline has been formed from a mould. This engraving process takes over two weeks, and is performed entirely by hand, after which the dragon’s tail is tipped with a pearl. Interestingly, the dragon does not actually touch the movement, even in the completed watch. Save for the attention-grabbing movement and dragon, the watch is rather minimalist and airy – it has no dial, and comes with a sapphire crystal, caseback and sides – undoubtedly to give the timepiece some balance. Given the peculiarities of the movement, the crown has been relocated to the bottom of the tonneau-shaped case.

Despite the presence of an oriental dragon, in red gold no less, the four iterations of this timepiece give surprisingly varied vibes as Corum plays with colours and materials elsewhere on the watch. The most ‘traditional’ has a red gold case matching the dragon, plate and bridges inside it, all of which are made of the identical metal. Two jewelled versions of the Golden Bridge Dragon are also available, with diamonds set into their cases of either red or white gold. For an exercise in contrast, we suggest the final reference with its titanium case treated with a deep black PVD coating.