Perhaps you’ve already heard that teeny-tiny watches are en vogue right now. And if you haven’t, allow Swiss watchmaker Blancpain to confirm the memo with a watch so petite that its engine – aka the movement – measures even smaller than a dime. Small watch, big entrance: meet the Blancpain Lady B.

This release marks some serious history for the brand, as it pays tribute to the 70th anniversary of the 1956 Ladybird Bullet. If you’re familiar with Blancpain today, you might cast them aside as a boy’s club brand; think watches motivated by tool intentions with rugged designs. But roll it back a century and Blancpain were crafting the hottest watches for women, boasting mechanical movements. Why is that something to brag about? Because women have long served as a demographic throughout watchmaking history, dressing their wrists with quartz movements (aka battery-powered) for ease and convenience instead of mechanical: a choreographed network of springs, gears, and an almost unreasonable amount of engineering. The couture approach to watchmaking, if you will.

Blancpain

But not Blancpain. Blancpain was creating history by making the world’s smallest round-shaped movement – for women. Even better, this decision came from then-CEO Betty Fiechter, the first woman to lead a Swiss watchmaking manufacture. This historic movement gave Blancpain the freedom to diversify what a watch could look like: from cuff watches, bangles set with ornamental stones, coral bead bracelet watches, to rings, pendants, cufflinks, all still with a watch inside. In essence, time was crafted as a jewel, not a tool.

That seismic flex from the 1950s echoes through the Lady B. It’s not a reissue or an homage per se, more the brand understanding the assignment all over again. The remit: a watch designed by women, with women in mind. Rather than defaulting to the increasingly ubiquitous language of unisex, Blancpain has done the more sincere thing and asked what women actually want from a watch today. No shrinking down millimeters from the men’s catalogue, no obligatory frosting of diamonds. Instead, it draws a direct line back to that chapter of the brand’s history when designing specifically for women wasn’t an afterthought, but the entire point of the exercise.

Blancpain

So what’s packed into this all-new tiny, bulbous ticker? Choice! A spherical case, in either polished stainless steel or 18K red gold, both 19mm wide. With a milky, opaline dial, its mini architecture proudly homes a more contemporary engine – caliber 615. More convincing are the modern inflections that take this beyond generic campaign speak: Blancpain giving you permission to have some fun with how it lands, offering a rainbow of double-tour leather straps finished with dainty buckles that have migrated from the unseen inside of the wrist to center stage, turning what’s usually hardware into part of the styling.

Worth clearing up, however: the OG model took its name from the tiny, domed insect, but today’s Lady B is in honor  ofBetty Fiechter, the woman who helped write Blancpain’s history. B is for Betty, B is for Blancpain is so back, baby. The Tiny-Watch agenda has a new poster girl.