Reissues and fashionable interpretations of previous fashions seem every year, now alongside extra up to date designs such because the avant-garde De Bethune DB28 or the luxuriously minimalist H. Moser & Cie Streamliner, which takes inspiration from the futuristic, aerodynamic locomotive and industrial-design references of the extra streamlined late-Deco interval. Undoubtedly, we’ll see additional expression of Deco’s exuberant aptitude in watch design and métiers d’artwork over the approaching months.
Louis Vuitton’s forays into watchmaking started mere many years in the past. Nonetheless, the archives of the 171-year-old maison reveal the appreciable affect of the Deco fashion, significantly on Gaston-Louis Vuitton’s revolutionary baggage designs of the Twenties, by which he captured the spirit of a brand new society and their modes of high-speed journey. The newest LV Tambour Convergence is a nod to that period’s montres à guichet (window watches, often that includes leaping hours). Futuristic on the lookout for the time, these timepieces are distinguishable by their stable polished-metal face plates with small apertures for a fleeting “digital” studying of hours and minutes.
Among the many interval listings discovered at current Phillips auctions, uncommon jumping-hour watches have secured spectacular gross sales figures, confirming the rising curiosity in Artwork Deco watches amongst severe collectors. Examples embrace a pure-lined rectangular Audemars Piguet “heure sautante” (circa 1921) and the extremely prized Cartier Tank à Guichets (circa 1928) — Cartier’s first jumping-hour mannequin, reintroduced in 1996 to rejoice the corporate’s one hundred and fiftieth anniversary, and once more to the Assortment Privée in 2004.
Whereas the Tambour Convergence alludes to those high-quality examples, this guichet shouldn’t be a leap hour: as a substitute, it encompasses a “dragging indication” with easily rotating hour and minute discs that exactly but transiently relay a second in time peeping by the arabesque “clouds” of its apertures. Two fashions can be found — one in hand-polished 18kt rose gold (ref W9PG11), the opposite in platinum (W9PT11) — with the face plate of the platinum mannequin that includes a glittering floor of 795 snow-set diamonds of assorted sizes, requiring extremely expert handwork and evoking the polished shark’s pores and skin “shagreen” end so fashionable on Parisienne furnishings of the Deco interval.
Each fashions are exquisitely executed, with the naming of the gathering pointing to their distinctive time show in addition to the “convergence” of in-house mastery on the LV watchmaking ateliers in Geneva — motion design at La Fabrique du Temps, case-making at La Fabrique des Boîtiers, and uncommon handcraft at La Fabrique des Arts. They’re powered by the brand new in-house automated Calibre LFT MA01.01 with a stability frequency of 4Hz, a 45-hour energy reserve, and a free-sprung stability.
The superbly completed motion with its massive 18kt rose-gold rotor is on view by an open case again. The Convergence has a superbly gender-neutral case diameter of 37mm with a thickness of 8mm. Whereas replicating the drum form with its cambered sides that taper in direction of an inflexion level, the gathering additionally demonstrates the potential for diversification throughout the lately up to date (2023) Tambour line. The vintage-inspired lugs are distinctive to the Convergence, that includes hand-polished higher surfaces with the lateral exteriors hollowed out and micro-sandblasted for a recent really feel. They’re offered on calf leather-based straps with LV pin buckles and are waterproof to 30m.
Priced from round R690 000 at louisvuitton.com or enquire by SA shops at 011 784 9854 and 021 4059 700.
