Louis Vuitton’s commitment to independent watchmaking involves collaborating with some of the best of those independents. In its second partnership, the brand is introducing a five-piece limited edition of its Escale model in collaboration with Kari Voutilainen, an independent watchmaker with a workshop in Saint-Sulpice, Switzerland, acclaimed for his decoration and finishing techniques.
The Escale collection was originally launched as a world time design, with a dial ring marked with 24 city locations and decorated with miniature hand-painted versions of the colorful blazons historically used to identify the owners of Louis Vuitton’s iconic trunks. Escale means “stopover,” in honor of Louis Vuitton’s heritage as a maker of luxury travel trunks.
The new LVKV-02 GMR 6 collaboration is a GMT, with a dial that tracks a second time zone on a 24-hour scale. The hour circle is decorated with miniature painting, which involved using 28 different colors, and took 32 hours for the painting and eight hours of firing in a kiln. It references the design of ancient stained-glass windows. The same motif is painted on the mainspring barrel cover
Voutilainen’s workshop handled the hand guilloche at the center of the dial and the sun and moon decoration on the day and night indicator on the second time zone subdial. It was hand engraved and then decorated in the Louis Vuitton colors of saffron and blue. On the dial, the LV logo is combined with the Voutilainen signature. The case is made of tantalum, with a platinum bezel, caseback, lugs, crown and buckle. The case, bezel and lugs are hand finished. The caseback is hand engraved “Louis cruises with Kari.” Each of the five watches will be delivered in a bespoke Louis Vuitton travel trunk, hand-painted with a design that mirrors the decoration on the dial.
This article was originally published on forbes.com.
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