Dedicated to travel and the cosmos, the two watches are works of art and impeccable mechanism
March 6, 2020: Telling time from around the world, and giving an ode to the magnificence of the space, Louis Vuitton’s two new watches have the skies covered.
The Escale Spin Time Meteorite watch is named after its rotating cubes whose motion displays the hours, a design patented and crafted entirely in-house by the master watchmakers at la Fabrique du Temps Louis Vuitton. A modern way of telling time, the watch has no hands, instead twelve cubes – set on spokes around the dial – which spin independently to mark the passage of time. While eleven of them display variations in grey of the Louis Vuitton motifs drawn from its famous luggage, the twelfth stands out with an indication of time on one golden face. This unique concept puts a playful spin on technical innovation. The watch’s mechanics are powered by the LV77 calibre automatic movement, which boasts a 40-hour power reserve.
Available with a 41 mm diameter, the Louis Vuitton Escale Spin Time Meteorite juxtaposes a new bi-material colour combination. The shine of pink gold is beautifully set off by the depth of black PVD-coated stainless steel. This striking contrast is elegant, sophisticated and architectural.
Lastly, but definitely more intriguing, is the fact that the dial of the Escale Spin Time Meteorite is carved out of the Gibeon meteorite that landed in Namibia. This other-worldly, mystical material brings a majestic splendour to the watch’s two-tone styling, highlighting the vivid sparkle of golden touches on the central minute hand and on the cubes that show the hours. Given the fragility of the friable stone, it takes a rare degree of skilled craftsmanship to make a dial in two days of work.
The Tambour World Time Runway, on the other hand, is a very much Earthly possession. The perfecting of a new automatic movement, the LV107 calibre, makes this watch possible. It introduces two central hour and minute hands in place of rotating discs. This optimises how you can read universal time. Modern-day globetrotters can instantly tell the time in all 24 time zones with just a glance. If the time indicated by the central hands is the correct time in the city whose name is positioned at 12 o’clock, then the local time in the other capitals can reliably be deduced from their position.
The dial of the Tambour is housed in a 46 mm-diameter case allying two materials and two colours – pink gold and black PVD-coated stainless steel. Its apparent depth is made possible by a city disc formed of sapphire crystal, which projects the initials of each of the 24 cities, as if they were suspended above the hours.
Echoing the international aviation aesthetic seen on airport runways around the world, the foregrounded colours of the watch are black, white and yellow. The dial’s imposing sporty character is augmented by a hefty winding crown. Made of pink gold covered with black rubber, it gives an optimal grip. The strap is interchangeable and easily swappable to suit one’s mood, with no hassle and no tools.
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