# Twenty years of Tambour glory
Although Louis Vuitton Louis Vuitton was founded in 1854, the brand’s official involvement in the watchmaking industry began in 2002, “not long ago. 21 years ago, Louis Vuitton launched the Tambour series of watches, the name in French means “drum”. Its shape is bold and avant-garde and creative. The round case is made of one piece of metal, with the iconic ear, which has a high degree of recognition. The release of the Tambour series of watches marks the success of Louis Vuitton’s entry into the watchmaking industry.
* 2002 Tambour Series Starter *
At that time, people generally held a skeptical attitude towards the brands that were new to the watchmaking industry, because in this century-old traditional industry, any novice would face great challenges from the industry, the market, customers, and even business psychology. For Louis Vuitton to join, the same industry has shown a rare warm welcome. People’s trust comes from the brand’s adherence to inheritance and elegant and confident image shaping, as well as its great contribution to the industry. In addition, the LOUIS VUITTON is exactly 12 letters, which perfectly corresponds to the 12 time scales on the dial, the 12 hours a day, and the 12 months of the year. It has been destined for the watch industry.
* Case side engraved LOUIS VUITTON name *
With the passage of time, the Tambour has become a model of Louis Vuitton watch series, constantly innovating, while being loyal to the core spirit of the brand: the organic integration of technology and craftsmanship, and the infinite enthusiasm for travel art and bold innovation. The Tambour Spin Time series of watches launched in 2009 replaced the pointer with a rotating box, redefining the way to display time. In 2011, Geneva La Fabrique du Temps Advanced Watchmaking Workshop was incorporated by Louis Vuitton. Famous watchmakers Michel Navas and Enrico Barbasini joined the brand’s watchmaking tour.
* Louis Vuitton La Fabrique du Temps Advanced Watchmaking Workshop *
The Tambour eVolution watch launched in 2014 has a tough shape and a masculine style. In 2016, the Tambour Slim watch with tourbillon was introduced, highlighting the exquisite independent style. The Tambour Moon watch launched in 2017 continues its circular shape, with a curved case showing a subversive design. The Tambour Curve watch to be launched in 2020 is equipped with titanium and Carbostratum®A convex case made of composite material, with a flying tourbillon movement honored with the Geneva imprint (Poinçon de Genève).
* Clockwise: Tambour eVolution GMT Chronograph, Tambour Slim Flying Tourbillon, Tambour Moon GMT, Tambour Curve Flying Tourbillon *
# New change, Tambour to enter advanced watchmaking
A few days ago, the global core watch media gathered at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris to witness the birth of a new generation of Tambour watches. Jean Arnault, director of Louis Vuitton’s watch department, introduced the future development direction of the brand watch department: in the future, Louis Vuitton watches will be simplified into Tambour, Escale, Diver and advanced watchmaking series in addition to the smart product line, and will be based on independent movement, advanced watchmaking and high quality finishing. With the shutdown of a large number of old models, 80% of the vacant capacity will be directly transferred to the production of new products. In the future, with the product positioning directly to the standard high-end watchmaking, Louis Vuitton watches will only be available in selected boutiques. Watch connoisseur, player, collector, will be the main customer group in the future.
* Louis Vuitton Watch Division Director Jean Arnault *
The new product starts with the basic model of the Tambour series of watches, retains some of the characteristic elements of the old model, and redesigns and layouts all parts from the inside to the outside.
* New Louis Vuitton Tambour series watches *
* * · Case: * * A round drum-shaped case with a large bottom surface and a slightly smaller top surface and an arc-shaped side surface shall be retained. The side of the case is engraved with 12 letters of LOUIS VUITTON at the position higher than the ear and lower than the bezel. The biggest change is the thickness of the case, which has now dropped significantly to 8.3mm, greatly improving the wearing comfort. Since the convergent table mirror opening is less than the bottom diameter of 40mm, it is visually more like a size of 37 and 38mm, which can be worn by both men and women. The bezel is extremely narrow, and the dial is like a panoramic borderless screen, which is spacious and atmospheric. The edge of the screw-in bottom cover is slightly thinner, which makes it feel a bit “trapped” on the wrist, and the side of the watch is thinner and more fit.
**· Dial:** Dial is one of the essence of the new model. The outer ring and the middle ring are frosted matte, the outer ring has a highly polished concave logo every 5 minutes, and the time scale of the middle ring is inlaid numbers and three-dimensional rods alternately. The inner ring is vertically drawn, and PARIS is marked under the printed LOUIS VUITTON trademark, emphasizing the origin and residence of the brand. The 6-point small second plate is decorated with concentric circle shading, with FAB. EN SUISSE printed on the bottom, originally “made in Switzerland” (Fabriqu Suisse). the choice of this writing is intended to borrow the clever idea of La Fabrique du Temps-a watch manufacturing workshop in Geneva, which is affiliated with FAB brand, to perfectly blend Paris style with Swiss technology.
The outer ring, middle ring, inner ring and small second disc of the dial are all edged with metal thin lines to highlight the subtle differences in height. Due to the use of different decorative processes on the multi-level three-dimensional dial, although the brand has repeatedly emphasized that the color of the dial is a unified single tone, it will show completely different visual effects under different light or viewing angles, and even different Color effect. After asking, I also found some other hidden secrets: the luminous materials on the digital time markers and hands were manually filled in one by one with syringes, and all the hands and time markers were made of 18K gold with the same color as the dial.
**· Chain strap:** The bracelet is seamlessly connected to the case, and the structure without lugs makes the new Tambour watch a rare pure round watch with an integrated bracelet. The triple folding buckle realizes invisible opening and closing, and its opening and closing can only be identified by touch. Separate each brushed link in sequence with a polished center link, and the end links are engraved with the LOUIS VUITTON. The upper and lower surfaces of the links are designed with a convex surface, presenting a rounded contour, keeping a close fit with the wrist. The first five links are gradually narrowed in an arc, which not only increases the production cost, but also makes it more challenging to polish the decoration, thus gaining a comfortable wearing feeling and a beautiful visual effect. Durability and smoothness are on par with a soft leather strap.
**· Movement:** As the driving device of the new Tambour watch, the new LFT023 movement is the first exclusive three-pin movement jointly developed by Louis Vuitton and professional movement manufacturer Le Cercle des Horlogers. The design team created the brand’s original “aesthetic code” for it, including a hollow-out wound box cover reminiscent of Monogram floral patterns, a miniature pendulum covered with a unique combination of LV logo patterns, a linearly divided plywood decorated with circular grains and polished edges, and traditional ruby bearings replaced by colorless transparent stones, creating a highly uniform metallic gray main color.
Technically, the miniature pendulum is made of 22K rose gold and is matched with a peripheral gear device to enable the barrel to exert high winding efficiency and provide 50 hours of power storage at a vibration frequency of 4Hz (28,800 times per hour). The travel time error is between -4 seconds and 6 seconds per day. The LFT023 movement is certified as a precision timepiece by the Geneva Chronometric Observatory (Geneva Observatory) operated by the TIMELAB Foundation, ensuring that the movement meets the ISO 3159 standard and its strict requirements for travel time accuracy. Louis Vuitton is also the first watchmaking brand to receive this precision timepiece certification.
# Surprises after getting started
This time in Paris, Louis Vuitton released a total of 5 new Tambour series watches, including two fine steel models-silver gray dial or dark blue dial with fine steel bracelet, as well as fine steel/18K gold chain belt models, all 18K gold chain models and all 18K rose gold chain models, which will be added to the Tambour family later. The two first-round fine steel models are expected to go on sale in September and have been booked in Louis Vuitton’s global boutique, with a retail price of 142,000 yuan in China.
* New Tambour Series Watch dark blue Dial *
Compare the actual size and visual effects of the new product. The new Tambour is 40mm in diameter and 8.3mm thick, but the actual experience shows that the new Tambour looks a little smaller, only 36 and 37mm, and thinner on the side, only a little more than 6mm. This is due to the drum-shaped details in the case design, with the dial converging inward and the back slightly convex.
Wearing it, the body gracefully “sits” on the wrist, fits and does not slide, plus a soft fabric-like chain strap, without foreign body sensation. The thin body with thinner edges makes it a bit of an ultra-thin watch. Turning over the body, the LFT023 movement is enough to refresh the senior players: the first thing to notice is the colorless and transparent gem bearing. although this should not be difficult to realize, seeing that even the central gem bearing of the shockproof device is transparent instead of the same red color will really surprise the players who are not psychologically prepared.
The metallic gray background with the rotating rose gold miniature pendulum is also very special in the tone combination. Straight plywood, grained surface decoration, and polished hook edges on the edge of the plywood are all exclusive aesthetic features that players are happy to see. The faint Monogram flower pattern on the barrel and the combination LV pattern on the pendulum clearly inform the origin and ownership of the movement. The assembly surfaces (not visible) of all movement parts are decorated with pearl dot grinding patterns, so during maintenance, the watchmaker will also see the perfect finish.
The disk surface is the most ingenious part of this watch: the dial with a thickness of about 1mm is broken down into multiple layers. Due to different surface processes, each area of the dial changes in bright silver, light gray, dark gray and gray. When the incident light angle changes or the wrist rotates in the light, the light and shadow game presented by the dial is very interesting.
* New Tambour Series Watch dark blue Dial *
At the same time, Jean said a very pertinent sentence: “I hope my pickiness in details can be recognized by the players, because this can be said to be a watch made by collectors for collectors.” The young head of Louis Vuitton’s watch department is a player and collector himself. He knows all kinds of rare watches in the market and fully understands the needs and concerns of players and collectors. So in a sense, the new Tambour series of watches is a dialogue between collectors and collectors.
* New product launch site *
Finally, he also revealed slightly: according to the production scale of La Fabrique du Temps, the annual output of the five watches will be very limited, about more than 1,000. There are only a few boutiques in each store that are eligible for sale worldwide. Moreover, the brand left the surprise to the last minute: the watch box should be the essence of Louis Vuitton-a miniature hard box made by hand, but we are looking forward to what it is.
(article source: expression mytime)
