It’s golden hour at the base of the Eiffel Tower and Kate Winslet is entering a white-carpeted pavilion to the opening horns. Champagne is free-flowing; squares of fois gras are perched on toast and the field before us is primed for the following day’s Longines Paris Eiffel Jumping competition, at which the equestrian elite, including riders like Georgina Bloomberg and Jessica Springsteen, will fly to mythical heights atop their horses. By the time I’ve departed the Champ de Mars–the wake of the Eiffel– on Saturday, Mary Kate Olsen will also ride.
The horse universe has always seemed other-worldly to me—the idea of mere mortals communing with powerful, majestic, animals, and in pristinely snug white pants no less—and perhaps no more than here. It’s a surreal scene for this American in Paris (a mother of small children, traveling blissfully solo on the luxury Swiss watchmaker and Global Champions Tour sponsor Longines’s invitation) but one that seems fitting for an Oscar winner like Winslet or Rose DeWitt Bukater, the “Titanic” heiress for which she may forever be known. To applause and a ripple of awed whispers, Winslet is commanding the open-air room on this breezy June evening in a non-acting role: Longines’s Ambassador of Elegance.
For Winslet, a face of Longines since 2010, “the word ‘elegance’ has changed in the last 10 years,” the “Mare of Easttown” star told me earlier in the day, seated with a small gaggle of international journalists in a room high in the Intercontinental Hotel, in the shadow of another City of Light landmark: the gilded Paris Opera. A heaping bowl of ripe cherries beckons on the table, but none of the assembled writers partakes, not wanting, we confess to each other later, to contend with pits in the presence of Hollywood royalty.
Yet Winslet is disarming, unstuffy and thoughtful about what truly constitutes a VIP in 2022. “Men and women can be elegant,” she continues. “It's not a word that we can reserve exclusively for women or describing a feminine style.That time has gone.” More than just first-class, “Titanic”-era luxury, “for me, elegance means power,” says Winslet. “It means comfort with oneself, being true to oneself. Winslet glances down at her wrist. “That’s something that Longines is really paying attention to in bringing about this gorgeous timepiece that can be worn by absolutely anyone.”
Said gorgeous timepiece, and the reason for the glamorous party at the Eiffel, is Longines’s newly-launched new LONGINES DOLCEVITA X YVY, a synergistic collaboration between the storied watchmaker and Swiss designer Yvonne Reichmuth, famous for her glam-rock leather accessories, from chokers and belt-bags to covetable, innovative harnesses, including one that can loop around one’s middle finger and stretch exquisitely over the metacarpal bones. The creative marriage takes Longines’s classic Dolce Vita, a leather-strapped, rectangular-cased watch inspired by a model from the 1920s and adds a remove, sleek second strap punctuated with Reichmuth’s edgy detailing, like the studs on black leather featured on Winslet’s preferred model, which she recently debuted at the Cannes Film Festival, pairing it with a black Alberta Feretti jumpsuit.
The LONGINES DOLCEVITA X YVY evokes the cool of a stacked watch-plus-bracelet, encircling the wearer’s wrist in black, cream or beige leather, like elegance with a hint of punk.“It's androgynous,” Winslet said of the unisex timepiece. “This watch feels very powerful,” she adds, noting that Longines “isn’t afraid to evolve with the times” and “pay attention to the world.”
In homage to Longines’s sponsorship of the Global Champions Tour and iconic events like England’s Royal Ascot and America’s Kentucky Derby, Reichmuth told me that she drew on equestrian design elements, from the pointed edges commonly seen on bridles or the harness-like melding of the watch’s dual straps. “We took these elements from horse accessories.” Reichmuth said, “but in a new, contemporary way.” The cream incarnation of the LONGINES DOLCEVITA X YVY pairs perfectly with the cream harness Reichmuth wears over a backless cream suit at the Eiffel launch party, making me suddenly long for a harness to call my own.
Winslet’s time will soon be dedicated to pre-production on a film about pioneering fashion and fine art photographer Lee Miller, which starts shooting in September. The Oscar winner recently wrapped “I Am Ruth,” a series directed by Dominic Savage for Britain’s Channel Four. “They are standalone single dramas focusing on one woman at a particular moment in her life,” Winslet said. The twist: while she was given a script with plot guidance, the rest of the scenes were improvised.
As the sky turns golden red, the LONGINES DOLCEVITA X YVY launch party in the shadow of the Eiffel launch party wraps with a performance by horse whisperer TK. “It's always a show,” Winslet says of a Longines party. “Coming out of COVID, we all need a little bit of that. People want a bit of glamour back. They want to be able to dress up again.” Winslet will be wearing her LONGINES DOLCEVITA X YVY through it all, saying it transitions effortlessly from her kids’s sports games to the red carpet. “It's clean, chic. It's fancy, but not at all.” Much like Winslet herself.
