Jean Arnault seemed very happy in mid-June during a video interview from the Louis Vuitton headquarters in Paris.
As the house’s watch director, he had just released a complete reworking of its Escale model, the second move in a long-term plan to reposition Louis Vuitton’s analog watches as solely haute horlogerie. (The brand does offer connected watches as well.)
The new Escale is a time-only watch that has left behind complications such as the world timer that debuted with the design in 2014. But its design details — such as the tiny gold stud indexes that look a bit like nail heads — still reflect the travel heritage of the Paris brand, which has made trunks for 170 years. (The most direct reference may be the lugs, which attach the strap to the case, as they resemble the chunky brackets that reinforce the corners of the trunks.)
The collection has six variations, including two 39-millimeter iterations in rose gold, one with a silvery dial, the other in blue, both of which have been hammered to a grainy texture reminiscent of the Monogram canvas that the house uses for many of its handbags.
Of the two platinum versions, one is a 39-millimeter model with a dial cut from the Gibeon meteorite found in Namibia in the 19th century, and the other, a 40.5-millimeter model with a shiny black onyx dial surrounded by 161 baguette-cut diamonds.
And there are two limited editions, with guilloché and grand feu (great fire) enamel dials. Prices range from $26,500 to $168,000.
The watch’s LFT023 movement, which was introduced last year in the redesigned Tambour model, was a collaboration between La Fabrique du Temps, the watchmaking factory owned by Louis Vuitton’s parent company LVMH, housing designers, watchmakers and artisans, and Le Cercle des Horlogers, a specialist movement workshop in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland.
In an indication of Louis Vuitton’s ambitions for its watch division, La Fabrique du Temps has tripled its work force since 2022.
So will the house’s repositioning be successful? Alexandre Ghotbi, the head of watches for Europe and the Middle East at the auction house Phillips, said, “Time will tell, let’s have this credibility discussion again in four or five years.”
The aesthetics of the redesigned Escale are what will draw attention, said Austen Chu, the founder and chief executive of the online watch marketplace Wristcheck.
“Watchmaking with design is the right way to approach watchmaking in the 21st century. You want storytelling, savoir faire and design,” he said. “The rivets on the minute tracks and the lugs are done in a very elegant way.”
In a phone interview from New York, where he was finalizing Jay-Z’s investment in Wristcheck, Mr. Chu noted that the 25-year-old Mr. Arnault has had a real impact on the house’s horology. “Louis Vuitton watches has made such a crazy change in only a couple of years, and all this is led by Gen Z, people my age,” said Mr. Chu, 27. “Gen Z has the biggest buying power, and they will for the next 40 years — they matter.”
Mr. Arnault said the new Escale, like the Tambour released in 2023, will be made “in the hundreds.”
“Our watchmaking is about making the best product possible, not about numbers,” he said. “For me, the success metric is when collectors that I know have several iconic timepieces come up to me to say that they bought a Tambour and that it is among the watches they wear the most.”
