The new ‘Escale à Asnières’ pocket watch pays tribute to the exceptional savoir-faire and unique history of two pillars of the Maison: the legendary trunkmaking workshop, Asnières, and Louis Vuitton’s center of watchmaking excellence, La Fabrique du Temps. The 50mm diameter pocket watch, created as an extraordinary one-off piece, is a true celebration of craftsmanship and know-how. The creation merges a minute repeater movement and automata mechanism of seven animations, with outstanding métier d’arts including gold engraving and enameling. Requiring more than two years to produce, the ‘Escale à Asnières’ pocket watch is an embodiment of Louis Vuitton’s singular heritage and unparalleled artistic crafts, and which showcases the Maison’s embrace and commitment to pushing the boundaries of creativity and imagination.
The family house in Asnières, the heart of Louis Vuitton’s heritage.
The story begins at Asnières, the cradle of creation for the Maison, and where Louis Vuitton founded his workshop in 1859. Located a few kilometers outside Paris, the village of Asnières sits on the banks of the Seine and was the perfect place for which to transport the wood and materials used for the Maison’s handcrafted trunks.
An essential part of the Maison’s history, Asnières evolved over the decadesto include an expanded atelier, as the main house served as the private home for many generations of the Vuitton family (who lived in the property until the late 1980s).
Today Asnières is at the heart of the Maison’s rare and special-order creations. The historic house is now a museum that symbolises the heritage and spirit of the Vuitton family.
Vuitton’s Family home and historic atelier in Asnières are at the heart of this story, and represent the first pocket watch to be publicly disclosed by the Maison. The property has been recreated on the dial of the 50mm piece, while in the foreground stands a 19th century horse-drawn delivery carriage, full of Louis Vuitton trunks. The carriage further captures the Maison’s unique past: it takes after an 1887 Louis Vuitton advertisement and a portrait of the family at Asnières, taken circa 1888.
The portrait featured three generations of the Vuitton family – Louis, Georges and Gaston-Louis Vuitton – with craftsmen sitting around the carriage.
A groundbreaking in-house movement
Powering the ‘Escale à Asnières’ pocket watch is the Calibre LFT AU14.01: a manual-winding mechanical movement with an on-demand minute repeater and automata mechanism of seven animations. La Fabrique du Temps needed many months to research and develop Calibre LFT AU14.01, which features 480 components. Meanwhile, assembling all the components – with their varying heights, dimensions and specifications – into a case sized at 50mm by 16.7mm was another mindboggling challenge. But this represents how Calibre LFT AU14.01 was truly created from the ground up, produced in service to the magnificent story that unfolds on the pocket watch.
The minute repeater, an iconic movement at La Fabrique du Temps Louis Vuitton, features two different chimes: the lowest for the hours (dong) and highest for the minutes (ding), while quarter hours sound on the two chimes (ding-dong). The movement uses a cathedral gong, the most sophisticated tone in chiming watches. With both a longer and lower sound compared to a traditional chime, the cathedral gong challenged our watchmakers and engineers to create a precise minute repeater mechanism whose many components also did not interfere with the extremely complex movement overall.
The ‘Escale à Asnières’ pocket watch pays homage to the jacquemart minute repeaters that Louis Vuitton has created on wristwatches over the years. What first began as bespoke orders for clients has seen Louis Vuitton’s jacquemart expertise evolve into the GPHG award-winning Tambour Carpe Diem wristwatch and Tambour Jacquemart Minute Repeater wristwatch that marked the Maison’s 200th anniversary.
The ‘Escale à Asnières’ continues the rich story of Louis Vuitton’s unique jacquemart heritage, this time in a pocket watch. A push of a trigger at six o’clock sets off a wonderful story on the dial. The horse and carriage – 3D-like and all crafted in gold – begin to move, the horse’s legs and hooves stepping left and right as the carriage wheels turn. The miniature coachman, also crafted in gold, springs to action, arms raised. Behind him, stacks of Louis Vuitton trunks charmingly pop open, each one revealing their own tiny Monogram Flower. The entire scene is presided over by a shining, brilliant sun that rotates at 12 o’clock. Set with an LV Monogram Star cut diamond, it’s the smallest LV-cut stone the Maison has ever created, and here debuting on a timepiece.
Playful, poetic and bursting with joy and delight, the seven animations each represent a mechanical feat: they move at different tempos, speeds and rhythms, together creating this marvelous yet realistic tableau. Michel Navas is the Master Watchmaker at La Fabrique du Temps who created Calibre LFT AU14.01 alongside Master Watchmaker Enrico Barbasini. “I love to bring some poetry into this mathematical world of high watchmaking,” he says. “It’s a mix of high watchmaking and theatre.”
Masterful gold engraving
Complementing the mechanical triumph of the ‘Escale à Asnières’ pocket watch are incredible savoir-faire that further challenged La Fabrique du Temps Louis Vuitton and its Métiers d’Art atelier, La Fabrique des Arts. Gold engraving is at the heart of the dial and caseback, with each element entirely sculpted by in-house master engraver, Dick Steenman.
Crafting the dial’s base begins with the labor-intensive, bas-relief technique, which is used to carve a single block of gold. Depth and perspective are key here, as Dick Steenman translates 2D renderings into a lively 3D dial.
Each element is crafted with meticulous attention and detail, sculpted under binocular and often with specialist tools with pin-like tips. Dick Steenman brings light and aspect to each element, while engraving and carving with immaculate precision. After all, each element functions as a moving piece in the automata’s theatre. No element is too small or insignificant to escape the utmost attention and care of gold engraving. Hence, ultra miniature wheels are sculpted to rounded perfection. The Louis Vuitton trunks – also very small– are given a special vertical brushing that recalls the Maison’s Trianon pattern, the first canvas used by Louis Vuitton. The carriage itself and its wooden frame are sculpted for mindboggling detail and depth, as the coachman is engraved with life-like features and subtle nuance. The horse’s physique emerges in gold relief, as reins take shape from its form, chiseled to different heights.
After engraving each of these tiny treasures, they are fired at high temperature for several minutes – no easy task with breakage a real risk at 800°C. The firings create a thin layer of calamine, a carbonaceous residue that coats the gold in a burnt-like, dark and moody finish. Layers of color are then applied to further energise and enliven the scene. Dick Steenman then carefully brushes each piece to create a unique play of shade and tone. Reworking the gold to bring depth and dimension to each element.
Three weeks are required to finish the gold engraving on the dial, and the intense workmanship is matched only by the equally labor-intensive, gold engraved caseback. ‘Escale à Asnières’ ’s caseback is a statement all its own: adorned with a horse-drawn delivery carriage that echoes the one on the dial, the carriage features incredibly fine details, including minuscule text highlighting the Maison’s first addresses. Like the dial, Dick Steenman begins with the bas-relief technique to directly sculpt the carriage, which features the “Louis Vuitton” inscription, the 12 letters of which come to the fore by masterful hollowing and chiseling of the surrounding gold. Meanwhile, the tiny trunks are adorned with their own unique texture, where vertical brushing is contrasted with a mirror polished background. The horse’s body is also embellished with the texture of the animal’s coat, as the reins are painstakingly carved in different reliefs.
All in all, Dick Steenman works with a multitude of techniques deliver a splendid play of light, volume and relief. The engraved caseback alone takes four weeks to complete.
Unrivalled enameling savoir-faire
Working in parallel with Dick Steenman is Anita Porchet, master enameller and a long-time collaborator of the Maison who has created many special and bespoke timepieces for La Fabrique du Temps Louis Vuitton. Her first task is to select the enamel colors that capture Asnières beauty and spirit. Simultaneously, an in-house artisan creates a special guilloche pattern on the dial, featuring sunrays that radiate from the central diamond-set sun. Anita Porchet then coats the dial with numerous layers of colored enamel – 35 different hues to be exact, each applied one by one. The dial’s most complex feature is the house, which is celebrated with a stunning play of shadow and light reflections.
Anita Porchet follows each of these colour applications with individual firings, which totals around 20 firings in all. An extremely rigorous and precise process, the dial is then given its final flourish: a layer of translucent enamel fondant that brings a glorious shine to the whole tableau.
Crafted in tandem with Dick Steenman’s engraved, 3D-like dial elements, the dial of the ‘Escale à Asnières’ comes into its own with a rich array of colours, textures, depths and heights, – not to mention playful animation too – in this most mesmerising masterwork of artisanal métiers d’arts. “All these know-how together give rise to this masterpiece – and an achievement for La Fabrique du Temps Louis Vuitton,” says Michel Navas, Master Watchmaker.
Unique trunk
The ‘Escale à Asnières’ pocket watch would not be complete without its own bespoke, masterpiece trunk. Created in Asnières, the trunk comes wrapped in an exotic green leather that matches the dial. Meanwhile, hidden drawers house the timepiece’s various accessories: an 18k pink gold pocket watch chain, a travel pouch, a magnifying loupe, and compartments for the certificate and book that details the journey of this masterpiece.
“The ‘Escale à Asnières’ pocket watch is a wonderful adventure for us all: the watchmakers and engineers of course, but also Dick Steenman for the engraving and Anita Porchet for the enameling. We love to surround ourselves with all these métiers d’art and savoir-faire.” says Michel Navas. “This piece represents the meeting of the expertise of Geneva and Paris, where haute horlogerie complication and intricate know-how embrace the tradition of Asnières.”
