Tambour eVolution Flying Tourbillon

 
The Tambour éVolution Tourbillon Volant watch is the first automatic calibre with a flying tourbillon developed and assembled in the workshops of the La Fabrique du Temps Louis Vuitton Manufacture. Its case in strong yet simple lines employs innovative materials. Light-as-air and offering an intrinsic invitation to escape and be swept up in adventure, this regulating organ is incredibly precise and extremely rare. The watchmakers from La Fabrique du Temps Louis Vuitton drew their inspiration from the Maison’s language and archives, incorporating the “V” motif invented by Gaston Vuitton in 1901 to adorn his famous Steamer Bag into a minute-marked circle like a coat of arms.
 
This almost minimalist pink gold and black MMC watch features an extremely sparse dial, each golden element of which – such as the figures, indexes and even the sixty microscopic studs serving as a guide for the movement – are positioned by hand. This work performed by the Louis Vuitton Léman Cadran dial workshop focuses the eye on the flying tourbillon, whose frame seems to levitate in this largely open space. It stands out as the main player in a staging whose motion allows it to break free from the laws of universal gravitation in order to guarantee its owner precision at every moment.
 
This tourbillon with an exceptionally well-optimised three-dimensional character is protected against harsh external elements by a case with a virile design, pairing pink gold for the bezel, horns and crown with black ceramic aluminium for the middle. This alloy known in the aerospace sector as a Metal Matrix Composite (MMC) is obtained by very complex electrothermal-chemical processes allowing aluminium to acquire hardness and resistance properties distinctive to ceramic without losing anything of its lightness. Onto this blackened, practically inalterable structure christened “black MMC” are screwed the transparent back, the 18-carat pink gold horns, the solid bezel crafted in the same precious metal, along with the two black mirror-finish steel bars forming Louis Vuitton’s signature “V” and echoing the case.
 
Watertight to 100 metres, this case with a 43 mm diameter worn on a solid 18-carat pink gold bracelet houses a self-winding mechanical calibre regulated by a flying tourbillon performing one revolution per minute. Through the wide opening made in the dial, its original movement offers a glimpse of the flying tourbillon frame bearing a “V” whose point serves to indicate the seconds that have passed. Visible through the sapphire glass affixed to the case back, the oscillating weight of the pink gold micro-rotor at the heart of this exceptional piece is revealed, along with its bridges, all of which feature an aesthetic tip inspired by the striped canvas created by Louis Vuitton to adorn his famous trunks from 1872 onwards.