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Elegance was this, or much like it. The new watchmaking quartet of Louis Vuitton, which celebrates the tenth anniversary of the Escale model of the brand, is synonymous with distinction, and comes in its simplest form: three hands, with a contained 39 mm in diameter to look every day. Interestingly, it is the first movement of hours, minutes and seconds of Escale, as the brand started the collection with complications and highly worked dials.
The tetralogy comprises two Escale in rose gold (both priced at €29,000) with discreet textured center dials, like the Monogram canvas typical of Louis Vuitton. One is silver-plated and is accompanied by a calfskin strap in camel with yellow stitching, and another has been stamped in blue, just like the leather of its bracelet.
The other two specimens are made of platinum, with hour and minute hands and indexes in white gold. In one of them, a meteorite has been chosen to shape the dial. It is the famous celestial body formed over billions of years that fell in Gibeon, Namibia, and that brings its mineral tones to the 39,000 euros watch. The last piece combines black onyx with the 161 baguette-cut (rectangular) diamonds on its bezel, plus one on the crown. It measures a little more than the rest, 40.5mm in diameter, and its strap is black leather. It costs 180,000 euros.
They all have in common that they refer to the roots of Louis Vuitton. Escale means scale, that of a journey in which the destination is the least important thing. The brand was born in Asnières (France) in 1859 as a company of handcrafted trunks and suitcases, going from a small leather goods workshop to a global brand that even restricted the opening hours of its store on the Champs Elysées in Paris in order not to die of success in the XXI century. And the Escale winks to that essence, carrying handles that allude to their trunks, simulating the riveted exterior of the brass brackets and corners that reinforce them.
On the dial, angular and riveted polished gold indexes have been applied at 3, 6, 9 and 12 o’clock. And the minute hand is dotted with golden studs that evoke the lozine wedges, a name invented by Louis Vuitton that refers to the fiber material of the protections on the edges of their luggage and belts. In addition, each new Escale features a serial number engraved in gold, like the plaques that identify the brand’s trunks.
A curved sapphire crystal protects the dials and brings the thickness of the cases to 10.34 mm (except the model with diamonds, which measures 10.69 mm). Another crystal on the back reveals the LFT023 caliber, which debuted in the 2023 Louis Vuitton Tambour models as the first automatic three-hand movement designed by La Fabrique du Temps, the Swiss haute horlogerie workshop that bought Louis Vuitton in 2011, in collaboration with movement specialist Le Cercle des Horlogers. Powered by a micro-rotor in pink gold, it is certified by the Geneva Observatory as a Swiss high-precision chronometer and offers a power reserve of 50 hours. Just the thing for a refined and elegant weekend.
