LOUIS VUITTON TAMBOUR SPIN TIME REGATTA CHRONOGRAPH

By Wei Koh

Several years ago, I asked Louis Vuitton’s brilliant Hamdi Chatti if the Spin Time complication that he had created in collaboration with La Fabrique du Temps (now owned by Louis Vuitton) had applications for other complications. Spin Time replaced the traditional hour indices of the watch with small square apertures. Within each of these was a rotating cube, all of which would show a “blank” side except for the one cube for the current hour. Chatti replied enthusiastically, “You will see.” This year, he presents the brilliant Spin Time Regatta Chronograph.



He states, “Today, in the America’s Cup, boats are given a five-minute countdown. They basically sail up and down trying to gather the greatest speed to cross the start line precisely at the signal for the beginning of the race.” The five-minute regatta chronograph Louis Vuitton created for the race last year featured a series of five apertures that would act as a countdown for these crucial five minutes. In the new watch, these are replaced with five red Spin Time cubes. By activating regatta mode with the pusher at eight o’clock, the mode window at noon turns red and features the word “regatta”. At the same time, five red cubes appear along the periphery of the dial, and when you start the chronograph by pressing the pusher at two o’clock, you begin this countdown where, each minute, one cube will turn from red back to blue to signal that an additional minute has elapsed.


But the truly intelligent thing about this watch is that you can switch between regatta and normal chronograph modes at will — the first for a regatta chronograph. Finally, the sapphire-blue dial is made in-house, and allows a glimpse at the underlying mechanism beneath. Leave it to Louis Vuitton and Chatti to emotionalize a watch as genre-oriented as the regatta chronograph, making it relevant and appealing to everyone.

CHECK OUT OUR VIDEO EXPLAINING THE WATCH’S FUNCTIONS.





Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/12/2012 09:44PM by madonna.