The Spin Time complication, featuring twelve rotating cubes with only one showing a number for the current hour, is unique to Louis Vuitton. Until now, it has been featured in rather colourful models in the Escale collection, with the cubes carrying the coloured flags familiar from the Escale collection and its world time and time zone models and two digits in order to display the time over a 24-hour scale.
Although not specific to Louis Vuitton, the central tourbillon is a rare complication, as I discussed last year. The arrival of a flying central tourbillon in the Louis Vuitton collection is therefore a significant event, all the more so when combined with the Spin Time display. The two work very well together, of course, since the Spin Time complication dispenses with the need for an hour hand and thus only requires a minute hand, which is carried on a disk rather than the usual central axis. This leaves space at the centre of the watch and what better way to fill it than with a flying tourbillon with the V-shaped bridge first seen on the house’s ultra-transparent first flying tourbillon model last year, which was inspired by the “V” motif designed by Gaston Vuitton in 1901 for the Steamer Bag.
This new double complication is launched as part of a mini collection of three watches that all carry a blue theme (the other two are the Escale WorldTime and the Escale Spin Time). Offering a more understated - and thus perhaps less divisive - look than the existing models, with a single shade of blue against the bimetallic background of a titanium case with platinum lugs (the attached lugs recalling the metal protection on the corners of the famous Louis Vuitton trunks) and crown instead of the multicolour cubes and dial perimeter on the other models.
A self-winding mechanical movement, Calibre LV 92, powers the Escale Spin Time Central Tourbillon. It was developed by La Fabrique du Temps Louis Vuitton in Geneva, where the movements are also assembled by hand. Operating at 28,800 vibrations per hour, it offers a power reserve of 40 hours.
