To celebrate its fiftieth anniversary, Porsche Design will auction a one-of-a-kind Porsche Design Chronograph 1 at Sotheby’s. The watch will be sold as a set with a meticulously restored 1972 Porsche 911 S 2.4 Targa “50 Years of Porsche Design Edition” unique-edition car.
The chronograph, built to mimic the original Porsche Design watch from 1972, is often considered the first all-black sports watch. It features a black dial with a red seconds hand and antireflective glass, both details inspired by the Porsche 911 instrument panel. In addition, the dial, crown, wristband, and case back bear the historic Porsche Design logo.
Porsche designed the restored 1972 Targa to pay tribute to the Porsche Design anniversary.
For the auction watch however, Porsche Design upped the vintage ante with another unique component. The movement’s rotor is designed to exactly echo the look of historical Fuchsfelge rims found on the 1972 Targa.
Porsche designed the car to pay tribute to the Porsche Design anniversary. It car features ‘Porsche Design’ lettering on both sides with a ‘50 Years of Porsche Design’ logo on the headrests. Even the dashboard echoes the theme with a silver-colored 911 plaque that reads ‘Edition 50 Years of Porsche Design’.
The auction, slated during Sotheby’s Luxury Week in New York from November 30th to December 14th, follows a six-month exhibition of both the car and the chronograph at the Porsche Museum in Stuttgart just prior to being presented during Monterey Car Week in California this past August.
The two-week online auction will start on November 29at 12pm EST and close on December 14, 2022 at 12pm EST.
Ulysse Nardin commemorates Veteran’s Day by launching the Diver Chronometer 44mm One More Wave, the second watch built in collaboration with One More Wave, a non-profit organization that assists wounded veterans through surfing and artistic therapy.
The new Ulysse Nardin Diver Chronometer 44mm One More Wave.
Rather than the 1,000-meter-water-resistant, 46mm Deep Diver with helium valve we saw in 2019 with the premiere One More Wave model, the new watch offers an ‘everyday wear’ option to buyers.
It draws from the watchmaker’s Diver collection of 44mm, 300-meter models with more classical crown placement and no helium valve. Ulysse Nardin outfits the new watch with its excellent in-house UN-118 automatic movement.
The Diver Chronometer 44mm One More Wave also more prominently displays the One More Wave iconography and features the organization’s distinctive turquoise color on its hands, the top of the bezel and on the lower strap connector (on the OMW logo). The watch’s black DLC titanium clear sapphire caseback is also engraved with the One More Wave logo.
Jean-Christophe Sabatier, Ulysse Nardin chief product officer, explains that for the new watch, Ulysse Nardin worked closely with One More Wave founder and former U.S. Navy SEAL Alex West and his members to strongly emphasize the organization.
“I particularly like the way the hands line up perfectly with the 0 at the top of the bezel and with the logo just below the case, all with the same color,” Sabatier says.
One More Wave founder Alex West.
The San Diego-based One More Wave has been assisting disabled veterans since 2015 and owns and operates its own surfboard factory to make custom surfboards for wounded and disabled veterans.
Now supporting 600 veterans, the organization aims to support 2,500 veterans with its ongoing fund-raising efforts. “We would not be the same organization we are today without the support from Ulysse Nardin,” says West.
The Ulysse Nardin Diver Chronometer 44mm One More Wave is a limited edition of 100.Price: $11,500.
Specifications: Ulysse Nardin Diver Chronometer 44mm One More Wave
Movement: AutomaticCaliber UN-118 Manufacture, hours, minutes, small seconds, date, balance spring in silicon, escapement wheel & anchor in Diamonsil, fifty jewels, frequency of 28,800 Vph.
Case: 44mm by 14.81mm titanium black DLC sandblast & satin-finished, titanium black DLC unidirectional rotating bezel, concave bezel with a domed sapphire glass, titanium black DLC case back with clear sapphire with OMW logo. Water resistance 300 meters.
Dial: Black sandblasted dial and turquoise minutes, black indexes with white Superluminova, black hands with turquoise Superluminova, power reserve indicator at 12 o’clock, date and small seconds at 6 o’clock.
Strap: Grey rubber with black ceramic element & turquoise lacquered OMW logo engraved on the element, black ceramic tang buckle.
De Bethune has installed a robotic arm in its workshop as part of a service to offer a ‘customized chronometric adjustment’ to any customer purchasing a De Bethune watch.
Called the Sensoriel Chronometry Project, the new service requires the client to wear an electronic, sensor-filled test watch for two weeks to record the wearer’s environment and arm and wrist actions. The Project initially offers the services to purchasers of the DB28GS Grand Blue.
The new service requires the client to wear an electronic, sensor-filled test watch for two weeks.
The data compiled will allow the De Bethune Chronometry Workshop in Switzerland to analyze the owner’s specific type of wear.
To achieve this, De Bethune has built the robot arm inside its Manufacture in L’Auberson. Using state-of-the-art technology, the device will recreate the wearer’s movements in their specific environment.
By reproducing the future environment of the timepiece, De Bethune will adjust the watch precisely to the needs of the wearer. De Bethune will attach a personalized report with the watch detailing all the data used for its adjustment.
De Bethune explains that “wearers will not have to do anything special, except wear the test watch in exactly the same conditions as their future timepiece and regularly recharge it on a simple charging station or using a classic USB cable.”
Louis Vuitton celebrates two decades with its signature watch collection.
When Louis Vuitton debuted its Tambour collection twenty years go, watches made by international fashion houses were primarily quartz-powered and mass-produced. With a few exceptions, notably Cartier, Chopard, Hermès, Gucci and Dior, global clothing and accessories makers have historically found the high-end watchmaking market too challenging to enter and succeed, beyond launching a few novelty pieces or as a partner with an existing Swiss maker.
The new Louis Vuitton Tambour Twenty.
But with Tambour, Louis Vuitton entered into high-end watchmaking with serious intent and long-term goals that, twenty years later, have successfully steered the fashion house to be recognized as a peer among the world’s leading makers of high-end watches.
Tambour Twenty
To celebrate the importance of the Tambour collection to its success as a high-end watchmaker, Louis Vuitton this year launches the Tambour Twenty, a limited edition chronograph of 200 pieces that pays tribute to the original Tambour.
For the limited edition, Louis Vuitton revives the original Tambour’s deep, flared steel case that widens at its base (tambour is French for drum).The celebratory watch is again engraved around its 41.5mm case with the twelve-letter Louis Vuitton name, with each letter corresponding to each hour marker.
The celebratory watch is again engraved around its 41.5mm case with the twelve-letter Louis Vuitton name, with each letter corresponding to each hour marker.
And as on the original series, the new limited edition model features a sun-ray brushed brown dial that displays seconds with a long yellow hand colored to echo the threads Louis Vuitton utilizes in much of its leatherwork.
While ETA-based movements powered the original Tambour time-only and GMT models in the premiere series twenty years ago, Louis Vuitton strategically teamed with its sister company Zenith to supply the base movement for the first Tambour chronograph.
That movement, the LV277, based on a Zenith El Primero caliber, again powers the new watch, offering the high-frequency, tenth-of-a-second precision built-in to Zenith’s famed series. Louis Vuitton has placed a 22-karat-gold rotor on the movement, which offers fifty hours of power reserve.
“Watch enthusiasts will recognize all the features that made the Tambour’s design so unique,” says Jean Arnault, marketing and development director for Louis Vuitton watches. “While this limited edition is a true concentrate of everything that made this watch stand out, it also boasts brand new features that will set it apart for collectors.”
Many guises
Louis Vuitton has utilized its Tambour case as a base for various models during the past two decades. Most Louis Vuitton sports watches were built within the Tambour case, notably the many nautically themed models that were made to accompany the Louis Vuitton Cup yacht races.
From 2009, the Tambour Spin Time’s self- winding LV119 calibre with Spin Time and GMT function was developed and patented by La Fabrique du Temps Louis Vuitton.
In a more complicated realm, you might also recall the Tambour Spin Time (2009) which displayed time using rotating cubes instead of clock hands and indexes, or the Tambour Mystérieuse (2010), the result of La Fabrique du Temps and Renaud et Papi teaming to devise a full ‘floating’ movement with no apparent links to the case or winder.
The Tambour Moon Mystérieuse Tourbillon Volant 3, from 2018. Encased in a 45mm diameter white gold case, it has an 8-day power reserve thanks to a double barrel.
La Fabric du Temps
In 2011, after working closely with Louis Vuitton for several years, Geneva-based movement fabricatorLa Fabrique du Temps (with master watchmakers Michel Navas and Enrico Barbasini) became part of Louis Vuitton.
Inside La Fabrique Du Temps Louis Vuitton.
Since then, the watchmaker has continued to offer an impressive series of creative and often very complicated timepieces, most of which are fit within a Tambour case. Even Louis Vuitton’s acclaimed entry into the smart watch market, the Tambour Horizon Light Up, is built within a Tambour frame.
The Tambour Horizon is Louis Vuitton’s smart watch.
The Tambour case, however, has not remained static throughout its tenure. In 2014, Louis Vuitton launched the Tambour Evolution with a more traditional 45mm round case. Two years later a thin Tambour case framed the Tambour Slim, which also featured the watchmaker’s first watch with an in-house tourbillon.
The 2013 Tambour Slim Monogram in Pink Gold.
In what was perhaps the most unusual iteration of the Tambour shape, Louis Vuitton’s Tambour Moon (2017) retained the signature Tambour round case but reversed its arc. The new concave case essentially created a second Tambour shape, which Louis Vuitton capitalized on in 2020 with the Tambour Curve. That watch features a titanium and carbon case that Louis Vuitton then fit with a phenomenal Geneva-Seal-certified flying tourbillon caliber.
The 2020 Tambour Curve Flying Tourbillon has an innovative LV108 mechanical movement treated with black PVD, with 80 hours of power reserve and a flying tourbillon regulator.
Louis Vuitton earned one of the watch industry’s most important accolades last year when its Tambour Carpe Diem received the Audacity Prize at the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève. As an encore, the Louis Vuitton Tambour Street Diver won the year’s GPHG Diver’s Watch Prize.
The Tambour Carpe Diem received the Audacity Prize at the 2021 GPHG. It combines a mechanism with jumping hours, retrograde minutes and a power reserve indicator.
Louis Vuitton offers the Tambour Twenty as a limited edition of 200 watches, each priced at $17,800.
Interview: Michel Navas, Master Watchmaker at La Fabrique du Temps Louis Vuitton
What level of watch manufacturing is being done at La Fabrique Du Temps?
Louis Vuitton purchased La Fabrique du Temps in 2011, and now we are in Geneva in the cradle of watchmaking. We have all the tools and skills to create magnificent pieces. From amazing, complicated watches to simple watches.
We have watchmakers, enamelers and most recently enamelers for dials. As you may know LVMH and Louis Vuitton both love artisans. So many other brands don’t have this kind of operation.
We are a company of 125 people, we have twenty watchmakers, eight engineers, four casing engineers, two designers and ten dial makers. We have a workshop for electroplating so we can make rose gold, yellow gold, rhodium.
Do you also do work for outside brands?
We cannot. We work strictly with Louis Vuitton and we certainly have plenty of work to do. Within the LVMH group we also have TAG Heuer, Hublot and Zenith and sometimes we will meet. But we concentrate our spirit and our minds on Louis Vuitton.
What are some recent additions to the factory?
We recently worked with in enameler Anita Porchet. And if there are some other artisans that we need we will try to add them to our capabilities. Very soon we will add an expert engraver in the house.
One of the reasons we are in Geneva is to obtain the Geneva Seal. We received that Seal in 2016 and we are very proud of it. It is difficult to obtain and it is difficult to keep. And we have to finish all of our components by hands, even the screws. Everything must be polished, angled and finished by hand. In addition, each watch has to go to the Geneva Seal offices for two weeks.
Do you see expanding other collections beyond Tambour?
Now we celebrate the twentieth anniversary of our Tambour watch, but we do have the Voyager collection, the Escale, and various Tambour variations. Tambour is our iconic case, it is pure and elegant. It looks simple, like a drum, but it is quite complicated. The shape is a perfect ambassador for Louis Vuitton.
My first project with Louis Vuitton was with the Spin Time. When we finished the first prototype, we realized again the importance of the Tambour case shape. The three dimensional Spin Time fits perfectly with the Tambour shape. And today we have different models of the Spin Time, including with the Escale shape case.
We try to offer our clients a different type of watchmaking that includes the best traditions inside the watch but also has the Louis Vuitton touch on the outside.
For me the Tambour case shape is the Louis Vuitton archetype. It will always remain in our collection.
Will you re-create the original Monterey case from Louis Vuitton?
I love this case. I like how it is smooth on the wrist so maybe I will speak to my designer about that.
What would you like our readers to know about Louis Vuitton watches?
Louis Vuitton is quality and craftsmanship, audacity and high quality, and you cannot find this combination elsewhere. For example when we developed the minute repeater in our Tambour case, this was a premiere because you have a second time zone, just managed by the crown, which you put in the second position. Our World Time is a world time watch without hands, and in the Spin Time, showing the time using cubes is also a world premiere.
Are you already planning for the next anniversary?
Louis Vuitton fashion and leather making can move more quickly than our high watchmaking. We are always working two, three and four years ahead of time, but we have to be patient. You will be surprised by our high watchmaking.
Ralph Lauren expands its watch offerings with Polo Vintage 67, a new collection of manual-wind watches styled to evoke the look of timepieces of the 1920s and 1930s.
The new Ralph Lauren Polo Vintage 67.
The collection features time-only models with distinctive, retro-styled black lacquer numerals, hands and markers, all set within an equally vintage-styled opaline silvered dial. A handsome boxed sapphire crystal tops the nicely proportioned dial, which also features a sub-seconds display.
This new series is decidedly more classically designed than the recent Ralph Lauren Polo models with the brand’s Polo Bear or Polo Pony on their dials.
Inside the 40mm aged-steel case Ralph Lauren places a customized La Joux-Perret manual-wind movement that offers an impressive ninety-hour power reserve. From the clear sapphire caseback the owner can eye the movement, which exposes its hand-finished vertical Côtes de Genève stripes and circular graining.
Ralph Lauren attaches an interchangeable burnished tan calf strap (with a removable back pad) to the watch. While Ralph Lauren has thoughtfully pre-aged the Polo Vintage 67’s case and dial style, the strap will age slowly as you wear it.
Even the dashboard echoes the theme with a silver-colored 911 plaque that reads ‘Edition 50 Years of Porsche Design’.
