For centuries, two- or three-handed dials have been the standard for displaying hours, minutes and seconds on a watch. In recent years however, several brands have launched watches offering different ways of displaying time without hands, often described as playful or poetic.
The young brand Trilobe is one of them. Founded from a project initiated in 2013 by Gauthier Massonneau, Trilobe was officially launched in Paris in 2018. The originality of its watchmaking design rests on a unique way of displaying the hours, minutes and seconds through an exclusively patented module called the X-Centric, designed by Trilobe and developed by complications expert Jean-François Mojon.
Both concretely and aesthetically, the Trilobe watches set the entire dial in motion. Three eccentric rotating discs of different sizes—the largest for hours, the smallest for seconds—slide on ruby rollers, each of them following its own counter-clockwise path, while three Trilobe indices point to the hours, minutes and seconds.
Trilobe watches meet the highest quality standards and are created in Switzerland, in the canton of Neuchâtel, by craftsmen who perpetuate the ancestral know-how of master watchmakers.
The young brand's production now includes the "Les Matinaux" and "Les Matinaux Secrets" collections, inspired by French poet René Char's eponymous poetry collection. The first is available in several dial colour combinations within a 41.5mm diameter case housing an automatic calibre completed with the X-Centric module. The second, "Les Matinaux Secrets", launched this year, allows the user to personalize the dial with the representation of the night sky from the date and location of their choice.
In 2019, Trilobe is asserting itself on the international watchmaking scene by participating in the Only Watch charity auction with the “Les Matinaux” Only Watch Edition 2019 unique piece, and in addition, its “Les Matinaux” Gris Soleillé watch was included in the pre-selection by the jury of the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève in the Petite Aiguille category.
