louis vuitton presents frank gehry’s first-ever flying tourbillon watch sculpted from sapphire

Frank Gehry’s Tambour Moon Flying Tourbillon watch

Louis Vuitton introduces Frank Gehry’s first-ever High Watchmaking timepiece topped with translucent sapphire crystal, making the rose gold- and rhodium-plated gears, plate, and flying tourbillon stand out. The watch follows the architect’s handbag collection with the French fashion house during Art Basel Miami in 2023, and it also forms part of the Louis Vuitton High Watchmaking series, which bears the mark of the Poinçon de Genève, an independent institution that certifies the manufacturing and finishing of all the components that go into watchmaking.

images courtesy of Louis Vuitton

Frank Gehry’s Tambour Moon Flying Tourbillon watch with Louis Vuitton is the first timepiece with a sapphire dial and case to bear the Poinçon de Genève seal, created, developed, and assembled by the artisans and watchmakers at La Fabrique du Temps Louis Vuitton in Geneva. The timepiece springs from the collaboration between La Fabrique du Temps Louis Vuitton and architect Frank Gehry, inspired by the latter’s designs for the Maison, namely the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris and the recently opened Louis Vuitton Maison Seoul.

Frank Gehry’s signature adorns the case back alongside the Poinçon de Genève seal

It is the Louis Vuitton Maison Seoul where Frank Gehry drew his design influences for his Tambour Moon Flying Tourbillon watch with sapphire crystal. For the Seoul Maison, he created a rippling glass structure that appears to float over the roof of the building, an allusion to the movement of a boat’s sails. It runs in the same vein as the architect’s work for the Fondation Louis Vuitton, where he built a glass ship. Frank Gerhy brings them together in his first-ever watch (limited only to five pieces), downsizing them to create a miniature scale that wraps around the wearer’s wrist. ‘My inspiration comes from the sea, fish, boats, and the nautical world because they embody the notion of movement, mobility, speed,’ Frank Gehry says at the grand opening of the Louis Vuitton Maison Seoul. ‘I like to express movement, inject this energy and dynamic into static materials.’

artisans at the La Fabrique du Temps Louis Vuitton took 250 hours to produce the dial alone

Over 250 hours of craftsmanship with louis vuitton’s artisans

La Fabrique du Temps Louis Vuitton crafted sapphire into the crystalline face of Frank Gehry’s Tambour Moon Flying Tourbillon watch, sourced from a single 200-kilo block of the crystal. The case, dial, crown, lugs, and hands have all been cut from this gem, which is dubbed the hardest in the world after diamond, and artisans at La Fabrique du Temps Louis Vuitton took 250 hours to produce the dial alone, which is no thicker than a sheet of paper. Manual craftsmanship was put into play to sculpt and realize Frank Gehry’s architectural designs for the flying tourbillon watch. The dial makers even used medical tools just to reproduce the asymmetric forms and curved swirls that hark back to Frank Gehry’s design ethos in his architectural works.

Louis Vuitton sculpted sapphire for Frank Gehry’s Tambour Moon Flying Tourbillon watch

rose gold- and rhodium-plated gears and flying tourbillon

In the end, the sculpted sapphire glass puts forward the rose gold- and rhodium-plated gears, plate and flying tourbillon’ meticulous detailing inside the watch, including the chamfering and satin finishes. Frank Gehry’s Tambour Moon Flying Tourbillon comes with an 80-hour power reserve, and this hand-wound mechanical movement displays a Monogram Flower within the tourbillon carriage. The architect’s signature adorns the case back alongside the Poinçon de Genève seal. After designing the Fondation Louis Vuitton building in Paris in 2014 and the Louis Vuitton Maison Seoul in 2019, Frank Gehry agreed to take on creating the first High Watchmaking timepiece of his career. The resulting watch may testify that he made the right and conscious decision.

the dial makers even used medical tools to reproduce the architectural styles Frank Gehry