Green with Envy: Louis Vuitton’s Fresh Haute Horlogerie
Bazaar Arabia’s timepiece columnist Elizabeth Doerr attends Louis Vuitton’s annual high horology event and comes away refreshed
Green has many meanings. This fresh colour certainly symbolizes spring with its new beginnings and growth. It can stand for envy or even a lack of experience. For Americans and Irish, the association with St. Patrick’s Day is strong, and in the UAE the hue stands for love, hope, joy, prosperity, and optimism.
At the spring introduction of Louis Vuitton’s 2023 high horology timepieces in Courchevel, France green was also obviously the colour of the season, decorating some of the most complicated pieces this high-fashion brand has ever made, beginning with an extraordinary automat made especially with women in mind called Tambour Fiery Heart Automata. Spearheaded by Louis Vuitton’s specialized movement workshop La Fabrique du Temps in Geneva, this timepiece does a lot more than tell the time: it is what is known in watchmaking jargon as an automaton, which means that it also possesses dial elements that move, therefore animating a story that the artistic dial tells that is, according to La Fabrique du Temps director Michel Navas, “Very romantic with roses and sweet but fierce.” The theme blends passion with a technical savoir-faire that reveals itself when the diamond-set button on the case at 8 o’clock is pushed and five elements spring into motion: a halo of thorns emerges from behind the hour-and-minute subdial, the roses at 12 and 4 o’clock begin to spin, the heart emblazoned with a banner reading “sweet” breaks open to reveal the second half of the message “but fierce,” and flames dance around the heart.
This watch is chock full of technical specialties like the first in-house enamel dial that Louis Vuitton has ever released. This tango of colour and motion combines masterfully with the virtuoso engraving of Geneva-based specialist Dick Steenman to make an expressive whole that one never tires of looking at, the eye always finding new details. The highly complicated movement conceived, designed, and assembled fully in-house at La Fabrique du Temps not only contains automata and a flying tourbillon visible at 6 o’clock, but also boasts a 65-hour power reserve and automatic winding – a practically unheard-of combination in high watchmaking. “If we make an automaton for women, it must be automatic,” Navas explained in the Courchevel chalet serving as the picturesque backdrop for the event. “To be honest, it’s not only aesthetic and romantic, it’s technical with a flying tourbillon!” With only 42 mm to house 325 components, this pink gold watch set with 107 diamonds (0.53 ct) is nothing short of a modern mechanical marvel.
Tambour Moon Flying Tourbillon
The flying tourbillon is the centrepiece of Louis Vuitton’s transparent, manually wound Tambour Moon Flying Tourbillon, which was introduced during the event in fluorescent, green- or yellow-toned synthetic sapphire crystal cases. Aside from its astounding looks, this timepiece is exceptional in two other central ways, the first one being that it is the first watch housed in a sapphire crystal case to bear the prestigious Seal of Geneva, a quality hallmark established in 1886 and awarded to very few watches meeting its origin, finish, and precision criteria. Every component of such a watch must be made and finished by hand in the Swiss canton of Geneva. While the case may not seem that remarkable just from looking at it, rest assured it is: only diamond is harder than sapphire crystal, which makes the manufacture of a case from a block of the material not only time-consuming, tedious, and expensive, but also technically impressive, with each case needing 420 hours’ worth of human and machine production steps to complete.
Tambour Spin Time Air Malachite
Louis Vuitton has the incredible advantage of not historically coming from an haute horlogerie background. This leaves the brand lots of latitude to play with its watches, which it does to advantage to create some rather unorthodox timepieces. The latest Tambour Spin Time Air model would demonstrate this perfectly if the preceding masterpieces hadn’t already shown this to be so true. While taste is certainly subjective, the quality of a piece of high watchmaking may never be in question, a crossroad where Louis Vuitton excels by using the best materials, traditional watchmaking techniques, and inventive ideas to successfully play with unique design, unusual shapes, and surprising concepts.
The Spin Time is Louis Vuitton’s take on the traditional jump hour. Originally introduced in 2009, it foregoes the traditional “jump disk” display to instead show the hour using 12 cubes that sequentially turn to reveal the hour, making the display wildly three-dimensional. On this particular rose gold piece, all the dial elements are covered in diamonds, while the cube displaying the hour numeral does so in emeralds to match the exquisite malachite dial that is home to the minute hand. This cube turns back around when the hour passes, returning to its uniform paved diamonds, at which point the next cube revolves to display the ensuing hour. The result is a watch that is easy to read, has its own distinct character, and is, well, fun.
From Harper’s Bazaar Arabia’s June 2023 Issue.