Riding the America's Cup Wave

For the second year in a row, Louis Vuitton has chosen to introduce its new range of timepieces a few kilometers away from the Baselworld premises – hosting its guests and clients on a boat anchored on the Rhine. This is only fitting considering the nautical vocation of the watch collection that the brand started in 2002. The new products reflect the tight connection that Louis Vuitton has with the sailing world, not only as a title sponsor of the Louis Vuitton Cup but also as official timekeeper of the America's Cup.

In a competitive environment where time is what sets the teams apart, Louis Vuitton has been looking for the best means of timing regattas and putting technology at the service of a classic sport – on one side by engaging the services of highly experienced partners who perfectly master the measurement of time and space via satellite, on the other by developing a high profile watch collection.

Noblesse oblige

Louis Vuitton's irreprehensible reputation as an iconic brand obliges it to produce a collection of timepieces that can keep up with its standards. And, in a single decade, it went from being a watch department infused with the fashion world it came from to a watchmaker capable of offering complicated timepieces. An important stage in the process was the acquisition of Swiss movement and complication specialist La Fabrique du Temps last year and – after coming up with high profile timepieces such as the Tambour Tourbillon and the Tambour Minute Repeater –the brand also introduced a GMT Minute Repeater that chimed both the hour on the dial and also the hour of its wearer's country of origin.

The Tambour Spin Time has also been a specialty with an innovative way of reading time: the hours are revealed by cubes that simultaneously rotate to display either a neutral or a numbered face. The new Tambour Spin Time Regatta is especially dedicated to regattas, of course, with a complication developed by the brand's watchmakers to help skippers keep track of the five minutes before the race and the minutes remaining before they must cross the starting line. The concept was created to give gravitas to minutes, which always seem to stand still when the countdown is on.

 
The America's Cup stamp

Two other timepieces currently being introduced underscore the fact that some of the increasingly vigorous America's Cup's regulations have been freshly configured: the countdown to departure has been reduced from ten to five minutes, and often a regatta is won or lost depending on how a boat crosses the starting line.

The Tambour Regatta America's Cup Automatic limited to 720 numbered timepieces is a steel chronograph encased in molded rubber boasting an automatic LV 171 Dubois Dépraz caliber with regatta function and countdown visible in progressive windows on the dial. The America's Cup Regatta Quartz housed in a 44 mm steel case with molded rubber has a regatta function with a programmable countdown with chime signal – an entirely configurable black and red chronograph that can be adapted to every kind of regatta countdown, limited to 1851 numbered timepieces (1851 being the year of the first America's Cup regatta).

The Tambour Diving series has also been highly successful and because Louis Vuitton is, well, Louis Vuitton, its collection also includes timepieces for women: the Tambour Forever Céramique and the Tambour Bijou Secret, based on the same emblematic Tambour case that has been used since the inception of the collection in 2002. “The Tambour should impose itself as an icon,” states Hamdi Chatti, the brand's vice-president for watches and jewelry.

Wind on the sails -- again

It is already an icon, especially in the nautical domain, thanks to a partnership with the America's Cup that started 35 years ago. The turn of the millennium saw the America's Cup grow in global importance until a court dispute threw the oldest sporting competition into troubled waters – leading Louis Vuitton to withdraw from the competition a couple of years ago. But when American team BMW Oracle Racing beat the Swiss Alinghi team, Louis Vuitton got immediately back on board with its former status of participating co-organizer. Additionally, the more dynamic racing format aligned with the brand's wish to assume a leading role in an event that reflects its values and fits its image.

The 34th America's Cup will be held in 2013, preceded by the so-called World Series (a circuit that takes place all over the world promoting the event and keeping the crews competitive) and then by the Louis Vuitton regattas that will determine which team will face the reigning champion Oracle Racing – until the America's Cup race between challenger and defender takes place.

The association has been a long one: in the 1980s, the Parisian luxury trunk maker created the Louis Vuitton Cup for the winner of the challenger selection series; the creation of preliminary regattas and the introduction of the Louis Vuitton Cup helped transform the America's Cup from mainly an Anglo-Saxon race to a truly international sporting event. Between July and September 2013, all teams will be equal before the chronometer competing in identical 72-foot catamarans for the Louis Vuitton Cup that will determine the challenger. The final showdown will take place from September 7 to 22 in the waters of San Francisco. Let the regatta countdown start!