Cover Louis Vuitton Escale Twin Zone 40mm watch in rose gold
Louis Vuitton Escale Twin Zone 40mm watch in rose gold
1 / 1
Louis Vuitton’s latest watchmaking chapter encompasses exceptional craftsmanship, innovative complications and support for independent creators, each reflecting the maison’s enduring fascination with travel and discovery
Long before it made watches, Louis Vuitton was creating objects for travellers—its trunks crossing oceans aboard steamships and accompanying explorers across continents, becoming the very emblems of adventure and discovery. Nearly four decades after entering watchmaking, the maison is now translating that heritage into a coherent horological language with its latest chapter that unfolds across three distinct expressions: exceptional craftsmanship, high complications and support for independent creativity. From the one‑of‑a‑kind Escale au Mont Fuji pocket watch to the Escale collection’s new in‑house movements and the Louis Vuitton Watch Prize for Independent Creatives, each reflects a maison forging an increasingly distinctive path in haute horlogerie.
Marking the third destination in the Escales Autour du Monde pocket watch series—following the Amazonie and Pont‑Neuf editions—the Escale au Mont Fuji is an object of staggering ambition. Here, bold structural design, high engineering and meticulous hand‑finishing converge entirely on the dial—a miniature theatre where the artwork takes centre stage, thanks to hands that have been shifted to the reverse side. Set against a background of a spring dawn over Japan’s iconic peak, a wooden fishing boat anchors the scene, gliding across a shimmering river while carrying gold‑sculpted Louis Vuitton trunks that slowly open and close to reveal Monogram Flowers. At its helm sits Ebisu, the Japanese patron deity of fishermen, holding a fishing rod. Framing the composition, nine sakura cherry blossoms sculpted in yellow gold and enamelled in pink and red sway gently, while a spinning gold compass rose marks 12 o’clock in the sky above.
In case you missed it: Patek Philippe pushes three grand complications into new territory
Above The case side of the Louis Vuitton Escale au Mont Fuji pocket watch is hand‑engraved with seigaiha wave patterns
The case side of the Louis Vuitton Escale au Mont Fuji pocket watch is hand‑engraved with seigaiha wave patterns
1 / 1
Driving this automated landscape is the manually wound in‑house LFT AU14.03 calibre, a 561‑component movement with an eight-day power reserve, a minute repeater, a flying tourbillon and a Jacquemart automata module animating four moving elements. Housing it is a white gold case measuring 50mm across and 19mm thick, its bezel set with 60 baguette‑cut sapphires each selected to mirror the dial’s colour palette.
Bringing this scene to life demanded more than 1,000 hours of specialised artisanal labour. The dial alone took 300 hours, combining grand feu, champlevé, paillonné and miniature enamelling techniques across 33 pastel colours and 40 firings to shape a soft dawn sky, a shimmering river of silver leaf and a Mount Fuji painted with brushes only a few hairs thick. Hand‑engraving—including the ancient seigaiha geometric wave patterns on the case side—took another 160 hours and required the creation of bespoke tools for the finest details, while a further 500 hours were spent on hand‑finishing the movement’s intricate components.
Honouring the maison’s trunk‑making origins, the piece, which comes with a bespoke white gold chain, is delivered with a presentation trunk handmade at Louis Vuitton’s historic Asnières ateliers and a doctor’s‑style bag inspired by the house’s archival 1906 motor bag. Created specifically for the watch, both are crafted in exotic leather dyed a light blue.
Above Louis Vuitton Escale Worldtime Tourbillon 40mm watch in platinum
Louis Vuitton Escale Worldtime Tourbillon 40mm watch in platinum
1 / 1
Meanwhile, the Escale collection, relaunched in 2024, enters the next chapter with four new in‑house calibres and five new references. The key piece is the 40mm platinum Escale Worldtime Tourbillon reuniting the collection’s twin pillars: the Worldtime display and the flying tourbillon. An Escale signature since 2014, the Worldtime complication presents 24 time zones via a ring of miniature flags, each rendered in grand feu enamel requiring more than 40 firings across five layers at temperatures between 730C and 840C—a process requiring more than 80 hours of work from a single master enameller. At the centre of the dial, a flying tourbillon in the shape of the Monogram Flower turns once every 60 seconds, its open cage catching the light. Integrating the rotating city disc and tourbillon within the same space required a complete redesign of the calibre architecture, resulting in the self‑winding LFT VO 05.01 with 337 components and a 62‑hour power reserve.
Alongside this timepiece is the Escale Worldtime, now featuring the same 24‑time‑zone display but with miniature‑painted flags rather than enamel ones, rendered using 35 colours applied individually over the course of a full week per dial. This 40mm platinum model is powered by the new self‑winding calibre LFT VO 12.01.
The Escale Twin Zone takes an entirely different approach. Rather than displaying all 24 time zones at once, it solves a long‑standing limitation of conventional GMT watches, which are restricted to standard one‑hour jumps and cannot track 30‑ or 45‑minute offsets. It achieves this by mounting two complete sets of hands—including a minute hand that can be adjusted independently—on a single central axis, enabling to‑the‑minute synchronisation across any two time zones. The full‑bodied hands show local time while the skeletonised hands show home time and can be hidden when not needed. Powered by the new self‑winding LFT VO 15.01 with a 68‑hour power reserve, the watch is offered in two variants: a 40mm edition in rose gold, with a silvery dial engraved with globe lines; and a 41mm diamond‑set version in platinum.
Rounding out the collection is the 40mm Escale Minute Repeater in rose gold. Driven by the manually wound LFT SO 13.01, it combines a minute repeater with jumping hours and a retrograde minute hand.
Above Louis Vuitton Escale Minute Repeater 40mm watch in rose gold
Louis Vuitton Escale Minute Repeater 40mm watch in rose gold
1 / 1
Alongside its own releases, the maison has been building a community of independent watchmakers through its biennial initiative, the Louis Vuitton Watch Prize for Independent Creatives. This March, Swiss duo Alexandre Hazemann and Victor Monnin were named winners of the second edition, securing a €150,000 grant and entry into a year‑long mentorship programme at La Fabrique du Temps Louis Vuitton. Underscoring the spirit of transmission at the heart of the initiative—aimed at supporting independent watchmakers, artisans and entrepreneurs wherever exceptional work is being done, regardless of nationality, origin or years of experience—the award was presented by the 2024 laureate Raúl Pagès.
Hazemann and Monnin met while studying watchmaking at the Edgar Faure school in France, and have operated their eponymous workshop since 2024. Their prize‑winning debut timepiece, the School Watch, pairs an instantaneous jumping hour with a passing chime, offered in two distinct expressions: one technically driven with blue accents, and the other artistic, with malachite and opal sub‑dials. The duo were selected from five international finalists by an independent jury that included watchmaking extraordinaire Kari Voutilainen and Tag Heuer’s Haute Horlogerie & Movements Strategy director Carole Forestier‑Kasapi.
Far more than a passing event, the initiative is actively shaping a new circle of independent watchmaking. And for a maison whose watches are rooted in the idea of the journey, championing those who are charting their own paths feels like the most natural extension.
Above Victor Monnin (pictured left) and Alexandre Hazemann of Hazemann & Monnin, the winners of the second edition of the Louis Vuitton Watch Prize for Independent Creatives
Above The 39.5mm Hazemann & Monnin School Watch Subscription “Monnin” edition in steel
Victor Monnin (pictured left) and Alexandre Hazemann of Hazemann & Monnin, the winners of the second edition of the Louis Vuitton Watch Prize for Independent Creatives
1 / 2
Credits
Images: Louis Vuitton
