Will the 2025 - 2026 season be one of unique pieces? In the face of a watch market hit by customs turbulence, the surest bet is to reach out directly to collectors. Jaquet Droz has long embraced this approach. Increasingly, brands are committing to this, but L’Épée is the only one doing so with everything...except watches.
Arnaud Nicolas, the energetic CEO of the house recently acquired by LVMH, unveiled during the Geneva Watch Days a unique set of pieces. Firstly, because they are “kinetic sculptures,” as aptly described by Nicolas himself. These are not watches, nor automata (naturally designed for movement), but objects designed to be mostly static, which the artisans of L’Épée bring to life with a watch caliber that tells the time.
Carte blanche
These objects are produced in two versions: one in series, the other a unique piece, crafted under the careful attention of an artist who reworks it in their own way. This collaborative approach is at the heart of the house’s announcements at the Geneva Watch Days.
While L’Épée’s usual creations are already quite bold, many of them require a knowledgeable collector to appreciate the 2025 innovations. At first glance, they lack any aesthetic or technical guiding principle. But in reality, all these sculptures are united under one conceptual theme: “carte blanche to.” One artwork, one artist, and their sovereign interpretation of time, object, and art. No constraints, complete artistic freedom.
Honor to the maestro Calabrese
For true watch enthusiasts, the piece co-signed by Vincent Calabrese commands the most attention. A giant among giants, a fiercely independent watchmaking genius, he is the founder of the AHCI, the Academy of Independent Watchmaking Creators. It is literally the nursery where luminaries like Philippe Dufour, François-Paul Journe, Felix Baumgartner (Urwerk), Kari Voutilainen, Peter Speake-Marin, and dozens of other sacred monsters of High Watchmaking have flourished. In 1985, it was Vincent Calabrese who decided to bring them together to stand against large groups and promote independents who today all hold a place in the pantheon of collectors.
His piece is called The Phoenix Eternis Ignis. The metaphor is appreciated, coming from a man now aged 81, still brimming with ideas and having survived all watchmaking crises, constantly emerging stronger and more creative - a true phoenix of watchmaking, painted on a perfect sphere by an artist named Morena Fetoshi.
Auto Neo Vintage
On the automobile side, two beautiful creations stand out, the Time Fast II (revised by Georg Foster) and the Rust in Time (by Jeremy Brun). Their common point is to forgo chrome finishes, glossy paint, and “zero defects.” Instead, the first features a fresh green brushed with random, imperfect black paint, a wild yet controlled streak of oil that situates the race car in its purely mechanical context.
The second, meanwhile, sports a vintage patina, as if the paint has worn away, akin to one of those “barn cars,” those rare sports cars sometimes found forgotten in a barn, untouched and original. An authentic and iconoclastic approach, fitting and relevant for a brand now almost more at home at Art Basel or FAB Paris.
