Time-telling showmanship

IT ISN’T enough for the watchmakers at Louis Vuitton to just make complications like jumping hours and flying tourbillons. To showcase their mastery in high horology, the complications must come with spectacular displays and feats. And the fashion house can’t wait to show them.

It’s well worth the excitement, for Louis Vuitton has unveiled three fascinating new models for 2023 which reveal an abundance of showmanship, artistry and technical virtuosity.

Tambour Opera Automata

Given the impact that the Tambour Carpe Diem made at its launch, it would have been hard to produce something to exceed it so soon. Only two years have passed, but Louis Vuitton’s master watchmakers have done it again, with the Tambour Opera Automata.

The Carpe Diem, launched in 2021, was a display of exceptional watchmaking skills, innovation and showmanship. Based on automaton (mechanised figures), the timepiece won the ‘Audacity Prize’ at the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève – the watch industry’s Oscars.

Building on the Carpe Diem, the Opera Automata turns to the world of Chinese opera for inspiration, that is, Bian Lian – the traditional art of mask-changing as seen in Sichuan opera.

Performers can switch up to 20 different masks in a fraction of a second, revealing a wide range of expressions. Its technique is still a closely guarded secret. With the help of the best enameller (Anita Porchet) and engraver (Dick Steenman), Louis Vuitton has transposed the mysterious interplay of faces to a watch case.

“We wanted the Tambour Opera Automata to reflect the striking aesthetics and expressive movements of Bian Lian,” explains Michel Navas, one of the two master watchmakers who created the watch’s movement (the second being Enrico Barbasini). “This extremely challenging art remains a secret, just as automaton mechanisms require perfect knowledge of traditional watchmaking skills.”

Historically, jacquemarts are automata linked to ancient clock towers, where intricate mechanised figures would click and whir into action to strike the hours in a ritual to mark the passing of time. Watchmakers later miniaturised the jacquemart to make a timepiece look good and entertain the wearer at the same time.

While the Carpe Diem featured a skull, reptile and hourglass, the Opera Automata has a Chinese mask that changes expressions on demand. A dragon embraces the cloisonné enamel mask, raising its head only to reveal the jumping hour at the centre of the mask’s forehead. The dragon’s tail serves as a retrograde minute hand. Instead of an hourglass, as in the Carpe Diem, the power reserve is a bottle gourd, Calabash. It’s believed that the Calabash keeps the evil spirits away.

SEE ALSO

Preview these early launch show-stoppers ahead of Watches & Wonders 2023

Time is displayed when the automation is activated via the dragon on the case. Similar to the Carpe Diem, one of the eyes of the mask is a nod to Louis Vuitton’s flower emblem. A four-petal flower replaced the number four.

All this is made possible by a hand-winding movement, caliber LV 525, the same movement found in the Carpe Diem. It has a power reserve of 100 hours.The 46.88mm pink gold case frames a dial engraved and enamelled with pink gold and ruby. Price: S$695,000.

Tambour Fiery Heart Automata

Showing a feminine side is the new Tambour Fiery Heart Automata. Powered by the brand’s first in-house self-winding automata movement, the watch is distinctive for its enamelled rose and entwined thorny vines – the same for the Escale Spin Time released in 2019, except that it’s taken further here.

Also making its debut on the Fiery Heart Automata is Louis Vuitton’s first in-house enamel dial, framed by a 42mm pink gold case. A sub-dial encircled by inward-facing briars tells the hours and minutes with thorn-armoured hands; while a flying tourbillon at six o’clock provides the rhythmic pulse of the watch, marking out the seconds over the course of its one-minute rotation.

The flying tourbillon often appears in the fine-watchmaking segment of Louis Vuitton timepieces, but this is the first time this mechanism is paired with a self-winding movement with dial-side automata.

At nine o’clock a flaming heart, symbol of piety, is emblazoned with the word “SWEET” and crowned with a golden circlet of Louis Vuitton Monogram Flowers. The flowers also appear at the centre of two enamel roses, one at 12 o’clock and another at four o’clock.

When pushed, the pusher set with gems at eight o’clock opens the heart and the soothing legend engraved on it now comes with a bold caveat – “SWEET FIERCE”. Simultaneously, the thorns surrounding the sub-dial come alive, while the two Monogram flowers on the enamel roses start to spin into a dance. Meanwhile, the gold tongues of fire atop the heart move up and down, simulating real flames.

As the subtle signs in the movement design and finish reveal, the movement was built specially for the Fiery Heart Automata – an indication of the great horological prestige of the watch. In line with the timepiece’s motif, the micro-blasted movement bridges are decorated with thorny rose stems in pink gold. The open-worked 18K pink gold rotor is also engraved with Monogram Flowers, as is the skeletal automaton regulator bridge at 12 o’clock. Price: S$600,000.

Tambour Moon Flying Tourbillon

The Tambour Moon Flying Tourbillon ‘Poincon de Geneve’ is the only watch with a sapphire case that bears the Geneva Seal, the highest guarantee of origin, finish and precision. The certification means that, from the 42.5mm case to the manual-winding movement, every component of the watch has been made and finished by hand in Geneva by experienced craftsmen, following the highest quality standards.

Crafted from single blocks of synthetic sapphire, the two latest Tambour Moon Flying Tourbillon models come in fluorescent green and yellow cases – a follow-up to the blue and pink versions launched in 2021. The transparent creations are works of high technical and artistic know-how.

Only diamonds are harder than synthetic sapphire which makes the latter, according to Louis Vuitton, “an impenetrable barrier to all but the eye and ensures that the exceptional open-work movement (of the Tambour Moon Flying Tourbillon)… will have a virtually unlimited life span”. Price: S$695,000.