MARTIAN ODYSSEY

After the Moon, Louis Moinet continues in the exploration of our solar system. With the Mars collection, the ateliers put “the Earth’s little sister” on your wrist.

The red planet may be a distant 76 kilometres from the Earth, but Louis Moinet can take us part of the way with a sample extracted from a meteorite detached from its surface. With Mars, it’s not just a simple morsel, here housed in a capsule at 3 o’clock, which has been integrated into the dial. Reliefs created with craftsmanship faithfully reproduce the eponymous planet’s chaotic surface and legendary volcanoes such as Olympus Mons and Ascraeus Mons. This copper theme is also found on the oscillating weight with a concentric “Clou de Paris” finish, visible through the back of the case. It is offered in two versions, 12 pieces in rose gold and 60 in steel, which have the respective diameters of 45.4mm and 43.2mm. Mars is also the brand’s first watch to show indexes shaped as Roman numerals. Sparkling and shiny, they seem to be suspended in this sidereal universe. The whole is marked by hour and minute hands in definite style. A small second hand, off-center at 9 o’clock, completes the stellar face.

For each piece in the Mars collection, accompanied with its alligator strap, a leather-wrapped case has been specially created. This too contains a fragment of Martian rock.

Price: 15,000 CHF (steel) – 39,500 CHF (rose gold)

By Dan Diaconu

RHAPSODY IN BLUE

Since 2004, the Louis Moinet workshops have been keeping alive the spirit of the 19th century watchmaker of the same name. A new limited edition combining cutting-edge watchmaking and sophisticated design is continuing the tradition.

Mogador, from a word in the Berber language, mugador, meaning “ramparts”, sounds like an invitation on a journey of discovery. Louis Moinet has named its new timepiece after the former name of the modern Moroccan city of Essaouira. The watch includes the brand’s signature technical and aesthetic features. The dial comes with a skilfully designed display enhanced by a deep blue setting to attract the play of light. The faceted shadows and lighter areas combine to create a highly graphic effect. A pair of hands in a very striking style move around a simple hour rim. At 6 o’clock, the tourbillon mechanism rotates once every minute. A 45.4mm-wide case acts like a rampart to protect the watch. This is a wide watch, but not at all heavy, since it weighs in at just 33 grams. The result is achieved by using grade 5 titanium.

By Dan Diaconu

ZERO GRAVITY

With four exceptional limited editions Louis Moinet commemorates history’s first spacewalk.

Space is a regular source of inspiration for Louis Moinet. The Sideralis took us on an interstellar journey. The Meteoris models included meteorite debris in the dials. And for the SpaceWalker, the brand recalls the exploit of one of the pioneers in space travel: the cosmonaut Alexey Leonov. Almaz 2, his codename during the perilous mission, was the first man to leave his space vehicle in 1965, for a spacewalk lasting 12 minutes and 9 seconds. Giving this zero-gravity adventure material form, an almaz, the Russian word for “diamond“, plays the role of a satellite for the impressive tourbillon with a 13.59mm-wide cage hanging above the dial. This mechanism is set against an aventurine background that becomes translucent on contact with light. The main visual attraction in this limited edition is focused on the time elements placed in a small disc at 6 o’clock. Two of Louis Moinet’s signature dewdrop-shaped hands move around a sapphire crystal with the watch mechanism on display. The elements are housed in an artistic and colourful representation of a starry sky and a nebula cloud.

All the SpaceWalkers include the hand-wound LM48 calibre, generating a healthy power reserve of 72 hours. The mechanism is visible through the sapphire glass caseback.

Price on request www.louismoinet.com

By Dan Diaconu

SECOND GENERATION

Enjoying the present moment also means savouring the passage of time. Louis Moinet has launched a new version of the 20-Second Tempograph to give the process material form.

In 2015, Louis Moinet launched the 20-Second Tempograph. This watch with a highly singular calibre soon became a reference in the brand’s catalogue. Its distinguishing feature? The time data were displayed on the right-hand side of the dial, but in an original way. In the arc of a circle appeared a 20-second retrograde mechanism. While the oscillating central second hand supplied a fun, attractive display, the hour and minute hands made their way around a small off-centred disc at 4 o’clock. The cogs and components filled the other half of the skeletoned dial. This year, the model is taking centre-stage again with a few changes and a new name: the Chrome Tempograph.

In the original model, a self-winding movement designed by Concepto was housed in a 43.5 or 44mm case, depending on the material used. While the calibre LM39 still drives the ballet of the watch hands, it is now placed in a 44mm case, with a design borrowed from another flagship in the Louis Moinet collections, the Memoris.

To give the watches a more contemporary feel, two versions have been produced with distinct chromatic designs. One combines black areas with a gold structure. The other brings together blue elements with steel. The watches are exclusive from the point of view of the mechanism, but also in terms of the numbers made, since the limited edition comes in just 60 pieces.

Price: 22,000 CHF (steel) – 48,000 CHF (gold) www.louismoinet.com

By Dan Diaconu

STRIKING A CHORD

A pure hour-strike chiming each passing hour. This ever-so impressive, rare complication nestles inside Louis Moinet’s latest creation, unveiled as a limited edition.

A major move for Louis Moinet with the launch of Ultravox, a striking timepiece.

This Latin strong voice strikes a magical chord through an incomparable movement designed by the master watchmaker Eric Coudray. This highly-unusual complication, whose role is to chime each passing hour on the hour, is spectacularly centre-staged dial-side. “Moinet Blue” movement components, such as the hammer set at 12 o’clock which strikes a gong positioned around the movement, enhance the unparalleled arabesque-style of the timepiece. The calibre’s 316 components invite to be admired in their entirety. By turning over the case, we discover a host of other essential mechanisms such as the two micro-rotors assembled side-by-side and featuring a black finish. One drives the hour and minute hands and provides them with a power reserve of 38 hours, the other is dedicated to the striking mechanism which can be repeated for 90 hours. In addition to its role as time-setter, the crown also invites to wind the rotors manually, individually using the 3 positions.

This breathtaking engineering composition sits majestically in an elegant 46.5 mm-diameter rose gold case. Two push-pieces attached to the caseband at 8 and 10 o’clock allow the wearer to respectively choose silent mode or to strike the hours on demand.

This first 28-piece limited-series Ultravox is paired with a black alligator leather strap. Other variations should be available in the near future.

Price: CHF130,000 www.louismoinet.com

By Dan Diaconu

INTERSTELLAR VOYAGE

There’s a new star in the Louis Moinet galaxy! For this timepiece, technique and aesthetics working in harmony result in a unique personality.

When you see a starry sky, you are looking into the past. This is the premise underlying the Sideralis Red Aventurine model by Louis Moinet. True to the original, launched in 2016, this version includes the complication of the same name at 12 o’clock and depicts the rotation of Mars, the Moon and Mercury. An ingenious architecture, consisting of two superimposed discs made of red aventurine, shows the three heavenly bodies painted on the lower disc, while the upper disc turns anticlockwise once every 60 seconds. Each of these reproductions includes real dust from the spheres on display. The dust from Mercury is thought to date back some 4.5 billion years…

This performance is guided by a hand-wound movement providing the watch with 72 hours of power reserve. The calibre stands out through the presence of two oversized tourbillons. The rotating cages measure 14.9mm and are 50% bigger than usual. They are both placed above the calibre, and their opposing gyratory movements provide an artistic watchmaking ballet. They are there to cancel out the effects of gravity on the movement, but the visual result is visually gripping!

This technical approach is matched with an aesthetic result that is magnificently enhanced by the red-brown tone on the aventurine dial and a refined pink-gold case measuring 47.7mm in diameter. The Sideralis Red Aventurine is a limited edition that is almost as rare as stardust… just 8 pieces.

Price on request www.louismoinet.com

By Dan Diaconu

Switzerland wins a Good Design Award for the first chronograph-watch in history

“Winning a Good Design Award alongside firms like Apple is recognition indeed. This prize honours the memory of Louis Moinet, thus restoring the watchmaking genius who invented the chronograph to the pantheon of universally acclaimed artists.” JMS

 Memoris has just received the distinction of winning a prize in the international Good Design Awards, one of the most highly-renowned competitions in the world. For 67 years now, the Good Design Awards have assessed the extent to which creative designs enrich the contemporary world. Some 1,000 applications were submitted by companies and independent designers in 2016, from 46 different countries.

As well as Memoris, Apple’s iPad also received an award. The design of both items surpasses the merely utilitarian; they are the stuff of dreams, adding a touch of soul, and offering a coherent aesthetic vision of what beauty is – even when the object in question is intended to serve a useful purpose.

A complete redefinition of watchmaking aesthetics

The starry base of Memoris consists of a brass plate coated in a translucent blue. The stars themselves have been created using an entirely new fixed graver process. This involves attaching a specially-made lathe to a traditional rose engine (also known as a guillocheuse).

Individual stars are all fashioned to feature different angles and depths, so that each and every one captures as much light as possible. The process used is unprecedented in watchmaking – and the outstanding result gives the novel impression of stars that really are shining.

Louis Moinet has also come up with a wholly exclusive use of synthetic gemstones. Usually destined to serve as good pivots and provide proper lubrication of the movement components, gemstones have now found a new purpose elsewhere: black zircon, in a screwed setting, takes on a decorative function here – on the Memoris case horns.

For the flange and counter bridge, Ateliers Louis Moinet have used a revolutionary translucent material. Its precise makeup, produced by combining a number of composite materials and using high-temperature vacuum moulding, is a closely-guarded secret. It offers a unique advantage: it is through-coloured – and yet the same time maintains a certain degree of transparency.

Using it in translucent dark blue on the flange of the Memoris adds an exclusive sense of depth, whereas an opaque flange would have ‘locked down’ the timepiece. Thanks to this material, the counter bridge is transparent, too, ensuring the wearer can admire the night blue sky – without missing a single star.

www.louismoinet.com

DESTINATION MOON!

For the brand’s first participation in Only Watch, Louis Moinet has put up for auction a unique piece made like an artistic vision of the Earth’s satellite.

Only Watch, the charity auction organised to help research into myopathies, gives watchmakers an opportunity to produce a unique model with a strong power of attraction with the aim of raising as much money for the cause as possible. So, on 11 November in Geneva, Louis Moinet will be giving bidders a chance to acquire a watch with an unusual personality, the Metropolis Only Watch. Its name takes us on a journey to the world of the imagination, the world of cinema. But the brand’s aim is to help us travel to the moon of our childhood. The watch embodies an artistic vision of the Earth’s satellite. The dial is the visible side of the moon while the back shows the dark, hidden side.

On the back of the 43.2mm case of the Metropolis Only Watch, we can see the rotor decorated with a concentric Clous de Paris pattern and a fragment from a moon meteorite adorning the LM31 movement. This self-winding mechanical calibre is certified by the COSC and was first used on the Mecanograph model released in 2014. It provides 48 hours of power reserve.

Estimation: 17,000 CHF – 27,000 CHF www.louismoinet.com

By Dan Diaconu

CHRONOGRAPH SEQUENCE SHOT

With a never-before-seen movement designed specifically for the chronograph, the Memoris Red Eclipse is no summer blockbuster; it’s an arthouse epic.

A complication is often overshadowed by the hours and minutes on the dial. The supporting role means it’s rarely in the spotlight despite the inherent difficulty in making it. With the Memoris Red Eclipse, Louis Moinet gives the chronograph the leading role and the hours and minutes are accessories. The stage is set with mastery. The skeleton dial gives glimpses solely of the complication’s cogs. The script began on a blank page to design a movement whose chronograph part wouldn’t be your usual additional module. It took 302 components to make the LM54 (4 Hz) calibre function perfectly. They’re not all bit parts! Just over 60 of them were designed for the chronograph to perform on its own plate forming the main set. Stars illuminate this translucent blue stage like spotlights on a Hollywood film set at night.

By Dan Diaconu

TIME: A NEW FOSSIL ENERGY

A new edition made by Louis Moinet and limited to 28 pieces includes a tourbillon movement driving a kinetic visual effect and a unique second display.

In 2013, Louis Moinet unveiled the surprising Derrick Tourbillon watch. What was original about it? It was a device representing a derrick used to extract crude oil, and which moved for as long as the watch worked. You just needed to recharge it with non-polluting mechanical energy for it to start up again. With the Black Gold Derrick, the mechanism has kept the same spirit linked to the world of oil-drilling, while pushing creativity a little bit further. The dial again features a long articulated arm with its “head” at the left-hand end, creating the visual identity of the oil-extracting tool. The mechanic architecture is rounded off by a titanium barrel located at 9 o’clock. Louis Moinet has given the permanently rotating barrel the task of marking the seconds. They can be read at the bottom of the barrel, on a red engraved seconds track.

“Black gold” flows symbolically across the dial. The bridges have been coated with black PVD. They are open-worked, unveiling the mechanism and the barrel spring with its traditional finishes, characteristic of fine watchmaking. The numerous acute angles are all hand-finished. Also to be seen is a pearled decor on the plate and slender lines on the bridges.

The calibre and tourbillon provide the Black Gold Derrick with a healthy power reserve of 3 days. The watch is housed in a white gold case, christened Neo by Louis Moinet, and features the 6-screw bezel that has become the firm’s trade mark. The open-work lugs are fitted to an elegant leather strap.

Price: 260,000 CHF www.louismoinet.com

By Dan Diaconu