The Escales Autour du Monde pocket watch collection now travels to the far reaches of North America – to Alaska’s spectacular, awe-inspiring Margerie Glacier. Equipped with a Jacquemart mechanism and tourbillon, and further coming to life with the most exceptional métiers d’art, the new Escale en Alaska features nine animations and 17 moving parts. This is the most complex pocket watch ever created by the Geneva-based La Fabrique du Temps Louis Vuitton, home to the Louis Vuitton’s in-house watchmaking ateliers: La Fabrique des Boîtiers (case making), La Fabrique des Mouvements (movement components making), and La Fabrique des Arts (dial making and Métiers d’Art) – which have all united to create this one-of-a-kind, haute horlogerie masterpiece.
A glorious interpretation
Embodying the ”Art of Travel” at the heart of the Escales Autour du Monde collection, the new 50mm pocket watch imagines a truly magical and breath-taking scene, with incredible detail to match: under the celestial dance of swirling Northern Lights, Alaska’s Margerie Glacier becomes a captivating night scene, as the region’s wild inhabitants – a whale, orca and entire penguin families – bring the dial to life.
In addition to the pocket watch being La Fabrique du Temps Louis Vuitton’s most complex piece yet, the collection for the first time features an LV Monogram Star cut diamond on the dial, the smallest ever created at 0.05-carat. Depicted as a shooting star that descends over a glacier, rendered in 3D-like detail, the scene finds a blue whale delightfully raising its head and tail above the sea, as an orca joins in, opening its mouth to reveal the tiniest of hand-sculpted white gold teeth. Penguins revel in their company, flippers flapping or waddling happily, either on a frozen shore or a floating iceberg that subtly drifts from right to left. Like all the Escales Autour du Monde creations, the signature Louis Vuitton trunks slowly open and close to reveal tiny LV Monogram flowers.
The whole wintery scene is presided over by a gold compass rose at 12 o’clock, spinning in a deep blue sky.
Finally, a gem-set bezel of 60 colored sapphires, diamonds and tourmalines round out the story unfolding on the dial.
“This is the most complex pocket watch we’ve ever created, with 17 moving parts – including the whale, orca, three different types of penguins, plus the LV Monogram Star cut diamond, which is a new first for the collection,” says Matthieu Hegi, Artistic Director at La Fabrique du Temps Louis Vuitton.
“The real challenge was to incorporate all these elements within the constraints of the pocket watch mechanism and case, which we did not wish to change.
So that was another challenge, which I found especially interesting and exciting to achieve. With the perspective of the Margerie Glacier in the background, the Escale en Alaska is about technical expertise as much as emotional expression.”
Dual Spectacle
Like its predecessor Escale creations, the Escale en Alaska is powered by the manual winding LFT AU14.03 caliber, featuring 751 components – and is the most complex caliber ever developed by La Fabrique du Temps Louis Vuitton. The movement incorporates a minute repeater that chimes the hours, quarters and minutes, combined with the automata module featuring the nine animations. The design also incorporates a tourbillon, one of horology’s most important complications, and a nod to historic pocket watches. Meanwhile two hands – traditionally crafted and blued through hand firing – are placed on the caseback, rather than the face, allowing the dial’s miniature theatre to truly shine in all its glory.
Even though much of the in-house developed LFT AU14.03 caliber is hidden away and not even visible, that did not stop the watchmakers at La Fabrique du Temps Louis Vuitton from handcrafting and handshaping each component to create a truly unique caliber with the highest artisanal finishes. For example, 735 inner angles have been beveled, producing a wonderful play of light and reflection while underscoring the watchmaker’s talent and patience. No element of the movement is overlooked and attention to detail is paramount, as seen in the snailing on the barrel, the hand engraving on the bridges, or the painstaking hand finishing that brings forth a mirror polish on numerous components including all the screws, the monobloc gongs, the tourbillon cage, and the ratchet – the latter of which was sculpted into a concave shape and which took three weeks alone to finish.
The prongs for the jewel settings come in yellow gold, and the wheels connecting the tourbillon are notably in solid gold. The movement’s upper section, where the bridges are visible, feature the celebrated Côtes de Genève stripes. Five hundred hours in total were required to assemble and hand finish this groundbreaking movement.
Together, these two artisanal endeavors – a spectacular scene on the dial rendered in incredible detail, coupled with the mechanical vision on the caseback, again sculpted with mindboggling workmanship – present a double perspective that beautifully celebrates the artistry of handcraftsmanship, not unlike that of a painting.
Pushing the boundaries of Métiers d’Art
Continuing the unparalleled savoir-faire found within the pocket watch is the extraordinary Métiers d’Art crafted outside on the dial. Multiple enamel techniques, developed in house at La Fabrique des Arts, enrich the Escale en Alaska: Grand Feu enamel with champlevé, cloisonné and miniature enamel. This is complemented by the in-house work of the Master Engraver, who has hand-sculpted every moving element on the dial, creating depth, character and wonderful life-like detail, for a total of 160 hours of engraving work.
The attention to detail in the engraving is meticulous, from the sculpted, smallest teeth in the orca’s mouth, to a trio of penguins, huddled together, their beaks, flippers and many tiny details all engraved to the finest millimeter – and often with specialist tools created just for the task. Even the small-scaled LV Monograms on the trunks require complex work and care, and is notably executed with the same design standards and savoir-faire codes that have long been used for trunk-making at Louis Vuitton.
Finally, the Master Engraver also showcases their talent on the pocket watch case, with adornment that echoes the scene on the dial. Raindrops and misty rainfall, often found around the glacier, have been carved on one side.
The other presents a more wintery scene reminiscent of the dial, featuring snowflakes that are subtly sculpted and shaped around the LV Monogram Flowers. Engraving the case alone required 40 hours of work.
Enamel expertise
Once the artistic director has finalized the gouache, the next major challenge is bringing that vision to life: of a glacier at night, glowing under the dreamlike atmosphere of the Northern Lights. As Matthieu Hegi explains: “This scene is full of stark contrasts, of night blue on white snow. Blending these together was very important, but also a powerful exercise in recreating this frosty, winter scene.”
The process begins with the Master Enameller thoroughly researching and examining the various colors to be used on the dial. The Escale en Alaska features a total of 32 different shades – mainly white and blue, but also tones of green – and choosing the right color is a very complex process that takes the enameller around two to three weeks to select the shades.
Then begins the painstaking task of champlevé and miniature enamel painting – an intense process that sees the Master Enameller truly live and breathe this masterpiece for months. Not only is the dial completely hand painted, but so too are the all the moving elements – from the orca and penguins, to the swirling Northern Lights. Achieving the correct hue is one part, but so is managing their volume and weight, to ensure full operation of the moving elements.
Close examination of the Margerie Glacier, the iceberg and sea – even the whale and penguins – showcases the sheer mastery of the enameller. The frozen glacier, for example, although rendered in a base layer of white, is expertly miniature painted with a variety of different shades and shadows, to create a multi-layered finish.
To achieve the glacier’s 3D-like finish the iceberg was in fact reworked with engraving after enameling, to further bring out the snow and frost-like features.
Meanwhile the orca and whale are also expertly executed. The latter comes to life with its mottled blue-grey colors and textures – not to mention the tiniest eye, again rendered in incredible detail. Elsewhere, the sea includes accents of green, with more movement and depth created through subtle shading and lines.
Finally, also worth noting is the sky, which is punctuated with Louis Vuitton Monogram, but here discreetly camouflaged and softened. To achieve this, the Monogram is first engraved on the base of the dial, then expertly enameled to subtly integrate them into the gradient enamel background. Meanwhile the Northern Lights also embrace the wintery feel. The path of the shooting star has also been carefully considered and rendered, and comes to life with a mix of enamel and aventurine glass for a unique shimmering effect.
Cloisonné enamel for the penguins is also masterfully employed to create a unique sense of perspective and depth on the dial. This special enamel technique brings a sense of contrast and life-like form, like at the base of the dial, where the penguins appear to be in the foreground, set against the sea and ice. This is balanced by the penguins resting on the floating ice: the animals are first engraved in gold before cloisonné enamel is used to create even more structure and spatial arrangement, complemented by the enamel painting of the ice – and which together produce a stunning 3D-like illusion to the work.
