A few years ago, Louis Vuitton’s La Fabrique du Temps watchmaking facility in Geneva showed me something special. It was a pocket watch that would serve as the base for a number of artistically unique automaton minute-repeater pocket watches. Designed to exist within the brand’s Escale family of timepieces, the Escale pocket watch would be a platform for Louis Vuitton to celebrate its greatest crafts and finest decoration. Although these pocket watches are not for everyone (both in theme and cost), Louis Vuitton doesn’t make any shortcuts in design or detailing. The resulting Louis Vuitton Escales Autour Du Monde pocket watches are incredible, museum-worthy objects. They are a bit campy, yes, but they are also magnificent displays of form and technique that will make most people smile if they hold them in their hands.
This particular one-off Louis Vuitton Escale pocket watch is the Escales Autour Du Monde – Escale Au Mont Fuji. As the name suggests, its dial celebrates a springtime view of Japan’s famous Mount Fuji. The hand-painted enamel dial features a beautiful multi-color pastel background with a miniature landscape painting of the mountain against an overall backdrop of what you might call a “Louis Vuitton logo texture.” The brand is very specific about having to feature its “code.” Thus, this background texture was used because, other than the texture on the small luggage trunks on the boat in the composition, nothing on the dial of this watch says “Louis Vuitton.” In the foreground are hand-engraved gold sakura cherry blossoms painted in stunning pinks.
The dials of each Louis Vuitton Escale pocket watch do not indicate the time. Rather, they feature multiple jaquemarts (small animated figurines on the dial) and several points of movement. The idea is that when you slide the minute repeater activator lever on the side of the case, the automatons on the dial move into action, as the movement chimes out the hours and minutes musically. Much of the movement happens on the boat. On other Escale pocket watches, the boat comes in the form of another vehicle, such as an automobile. In all instances, they are stacked with Louis Vuitton trunks. Not only does the boat move horizontally along the “water,” but the trunks actually open up. Some of the sakura leaves sway as though they are in the wind, and the compass rose at the 12 o’clock position on the dial spins.
Around the periphery of the dial, Louis Vuitton has set the bezel with 60 baguette-cut sapphire stones in a semi-rainbow pattern that matches the stunning pastels of the sky over Mount Fuji. The fisherman in the boat is incredibly detailed for its size, and fun to inspect. As lovely as the painted and engraved side of the Escale Mount Fuji pocket watch is, the mechanical side is a real delight for lovers of movement finishing. The in-house caliber LFT AU14.03 manually-wound movement features the company’s absolute highest level of finishing and quality. It is very noticeable to even the untrained eye, and the polishes, brushes, and other detailing on the various metal surfaces are truly gorgeous to behold.
The LFT AU14.03 movement is traditional-looking in design but is highly unconventional. Made up of 561 components, the movement features a chiming minute repeater, tourbillon, the four various automaton areas, and displays the time on what would normally be the opposite side. The movement operates at 3Hz with eight full days of power reserve when fully wound. Sadly, there is no power reserve indicator. However, the beautiful-looking tourbillon system, within the engrossing movement architecture, does make up for that missing feature a bit.
The Escales Autour Du Monde pocket watch cases are 50mm wide and 19mm thick. Despite the amazing sound from the chiming system, the cases are still water resistant to 30 meters, and are capped with sapphire crystal. This particular case on the Mount Fuji version has a common Japanese-style wave decoration on the sides. The matching chain that comes supplied with the Escale pocket watch is also produced from 18k white gold. Given the nature of this product, it also comes with a bespoke Louis Vuitton presentation trunk. A truly impressive treasure, Louis Vuitton gets the details correct in its highly exclusive Escale pocket watch series. These are going to be very rare to find in the wild. Price for the Louis Vuitton Escales Autour Du Monde – Escale Mount Fuji Pocket watch is €1,300,000 EUR. For more information, please visit the Louis Vuitton website.
AloJapan.com