Finnish watchmaker Kari Voutilainen and luxurious items maker Louis Vuitton partnered to create a horological masterpiece.
The Louis Vuitton x Kari Voutilainen LVKV-02 GMR 6 is introduced in a 40.5 mm x 12.54 mm tantalum case, which incorporates a hand-polished platinum bezel, caseback, lugs, and crown — making a refined distinction when juxtaposed towards the hand completed satin case.
Giant white gold Roman numerals mark the hours, every hand-applied to the multicolored hour circle (impressed by historic stained-glass home windows), that was hand-decorated by Maryna Bossy, an artisan within the Métiers d’Artwork workshop of La Fabrique du Temps Louis Vuitton. Extremely, the method of making every hour ring, requires 28 totally different colours of paint, 32 hours of portray, and eight hours of firing.
The middle of the gold dial options beautiful hand guilloché-work by Voutilainen’s workshop (which the model is famend for) utilizing classic lathes, which take a number of days to finish. An intricate sample nodding to the French home’s Damier motif units this guilloché-work other than different variations. Voutilainen’s crew additionally produced the hand engraving, ornament (in Louis Vuitton’s signature saffron and blue), and enameling for the solar and moon used on the day-and-night indicator.
As one would anticipate for a watch costing over half 1,000,000 {dollars}, the case and dial ending are impeccable. For the motion, the main points are equally spectacular.
From the signature look of the massive stability wheel and traversing stability bridge, to the luscious striped bridges, with hand-beveled and polished edges, this can be a horological murals. The mainspring barrel incorporates a multi-colored miniature portray by artisan Maryna Bossy, a element underscored by a course of that takes 16 hours to color the 27 totally different colours, with 5 periods within the kiln and eight hours of firing — tying the spectacular dial facet to the motion facet.
The 254 element manually wound three-quarter plate motion has two escapement wheels offering a direct impulse, a beat price of two.5Hz, with a Phillips overcoil, and an inner Grossman curve — leading to a excessive stage of precision and as much as 65 hours of energy reserve.
Along with the hours, minutes, and small seconds shows, there’s a semi-circle energy reserve indicator subdial at 12 o’clock, and the 24-hour GMT disc (residence time) that’s contained in the small seconds ring has a day/night time indicator.
Maybe better of all, the crown not solely units the time and winds the mainspring nevertheless it may also be pushed to jump-set the native time (the massive centrally mounted hour hand), in one-hour increments. Notably, with previous Voutilainen GMT and GMT-6 fashions, the crown push button superior the 24-hour subdial as a substitute of the primary hour hand, that means the configuration is new on this iteration.
Like with the primary collaboration of this type, between Louis Vuitton and Rexhepi (Ref. LVRR-01), Louis Vuitton ties luxurious trend with top-tier watchmaking, for these with the deepest pockets and appreciation of excessive watchmaking and trend.
The Louis Vuitton x Kari Voutilainen LVKV-02 GMR 6 is proscribed to five items and every is available in a bespoke Louis Vuitton journey trunk, bearing a hand-painted rendition of the dial and version quantity on the entrance in addition to the signatures of Voutilainen and Arnault inside. Primarily based on remark sections, which regularly present a much better gauge of buyer sentiment than publications attempting to curry the favor of LVMH, one would possibly surprise why Arnault would signal such an inventive piece (if he was not one of many artists who created it).
Admittedly, I have a tendency to love every part produced by Kari Voutilainen, and this attractive timepiece isn’t any exception.
Images by Louis Vuitton/Kari Voutilainen.
