Louis Vuitton x Kari Voutilainen LVKV-02 GMR 6

Jamie Weiss

• The much-anticipated “LVoutilainen” is right here: France’s best-known luxurious model and Finland’s grasp watchmaker collaborate on a 5-piece restricted version.
• This represents LV’s second collaboration with a famend impartial watchmaker, following the Louis Vuitton x Akrivia LVRR-01 Chronographe à Sonnerie.
• It’s cased in tantalum with platinum components, has a hand-guilloché gold dial and is powered by a Voutilainen GMT motion.

Louis Vuitton is without doubt one of the most fascinating manufacturers in watchmaking at the moment. The French luxurious Maison isn’t simply investing massive in its personal watchmaking capacities – as typified by the dramatically extra horologically mature Tambour – however has additionally emerged as maybe the watch business’s most outstanding institutional supporter of impartial watchmaking, via initiatives such because the Louis Vuitton Watch Prize for Unbiased Creatives in addition to its cost to collaborate with outstanding impartial watchmakers via its “Louis cruises with…” collection.

The primary watch in that collection was the Louis Vuitton x Akrivia LVRR-01 Chronographe à Sonnerie, produced in collaboration with the much-feted Kosovan-Swiss younger grasp Rexhep Rexhepi. Now, LV has adopted that up with its second high-profile collaboration, partnering with Finnish maestro Kari Voutilainen – extensively thought of one of many best dwelling watchmakers – on an unexpectedly playful but masterful riff on one in all LV’s signature watch designs.

Voutilainen is not any stranger to collaborating with the watch world’s heavy hitters. Some manufacturers he’s penned watches with embody Armin Strom, Grönefeld, MB&F and Zenith, with many extra manufacturers benefitting from his experience and inventive imaginative and prescient by utilizing dials produced by his dial manufacturing unit, Comblémine. However Voutilainen’s watch with Louis Vuitton represents one of the crucial fascinating watches both title has produced.

To start with, let’s speak concerning the case. Basically an ultra-elevated tackle Louis Vuitton’s Escale, it’s referred to as the LVKV-02 GMR 6, and it includes a center portion constructed from tantalum – notoriously one of many hardest supplies to work with in watchmaking – with the Escale’s signature LV trunk-like lugs in addition to its bezel, again and crown crafted from platinum. This alone makes it a major watch, being the primary publically-available LV watch in tantalum (Jean Arnault, director of watchmaking for Louis Vuitton, owns a bit distinctive tantalum Tambour) – however the LVKV-02 GMR 6’s case is arguably its least fascinating function.

What’s much more fascinating is its dial, which blends the skills of each manufacturers. Crafted from gold, its centre portion is hand-guillochéd – a signature of Voutilainen’s – contrasted by a multi-coloured hour circle hand-painted by Maryna Bossy at La Fabrique des Arts, the Métiers d’Artwork workshop at La Fabrique du Temps Louis Vuitton. The day/night time disc on the centre of the watch’s small seconds and twin time zone indicator, imagined in intricate enamel, was a product of the Voutilainen workshops. After which, at 12 o’clock, a plinth inside the guilloché includes a distinctive collaborative emblem: “LVoutilainen”.

Certainly, the entire watch is a ravishing meld of Voutilainen and LV. The dial design is pure Voutilainen, enhanced by LV’s métiers d’artwork and stuffed with nods to LV designs, such because the model’s flower monogram and Damier prints. The case is extra pure LV, but the usage of tantalum evokes Voutilainen as soon as once more – and the motion inside, the dual-impulse escapement, second time zone-offering Kari Voutilainen GMR 6, is pure Kari. It’s a really cohesive collaboration.

As a fast apart, it’s value discussing how the GMR 6’s dual-impulse escapement works, and why it’s so vital. In essence (massive because of our resident engineer Borna for serving to me with this rationalization by the best way), a dual-impulse escapement is type of midway between a typical Swiss lever escapement and a co-axial escapement. In an everyday Swiss lever, you may have the pallet fork interacting with the escape wheel with two oblique impulses – which means that the facility goes from the stability wheel to the pallet fork, which locks and unlocks the escape wheel. Because the escape wheel swings a method, you get one oblique impulse, and because it swings again, you get the second.

In a dual-impulse escapement, the distinction is that you’ve a direct impulse. Which means that on one of many swings of the stability wheel, quite than going via the pallet fork, the stability immediately interacts with the escape wheel. Then, on the swing again, it’s an oblique impulse similar to with a Swiss lever escapement. The benefit right here is that the direct impulse is extra environment friendly because it doesn’t need to undergo the pallet fork – it additionally requires much less lubrication. Few watchmakers have commercialised dual-impulse escapements – Grand Seiko’s MEMS-produced resolution in its high-beat actions is essentially the most outstanding instance – that Voutilainen can mix such expertise with distinctive motion ending is emblematic of his mastery.

Talking of that ending: there’s the scrumptious côtes de Genève, perlage and inside angles we’d anticipate from a Voutilainen creation, with the added pleasure of a multi-coloured miniature portray on the mainspring barrel cowl, including a playful pop of color. We additionally see the LVoutilainen emblem return, simply in case you wanted a reminder of what you have been .

Louis Vuitton x Kari Voutilainen LVKV-02 GMR 6 pricing and availability

The LVKV-02 GMR 6 is a restricted version of 5 items. Every bit is offered in a novel Louis Vuitton trunk swathed in Monogram Eclipse canvas that’s been adorned with a hand-painted design that matches the watch’s dial. Value: €550,000 (incl. taxes, ~US$600,000)