TIME TO BLOOM: Louis Vuitton’s latest jewel also tells the time.
Arriving in boutiques on June 12, the Color Blossom watch is the first in the French luxury brand’s fine jewelry lines.
It will appear on house ambassador Ana de Armas, captured by the photography duo Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin in a global campaign to be revealed on May 29 in print and digital media.
The LV Monogram Flower takes pride of place on a 26mm case profiled like a round pebble, with the hardstone dial, tone-on-tone railtrack motif and curving sapphire glass cut in the shape of the rounded quatrefoil motif.
Finishing touches include a flower-shaped crown and a tiny nail motif at the center of the hands as a nod to the house’s trunkmaking expertise.
Ana de Armas in the upcoming campaign.
Inez & Vinoodh/Courtesy of Louis Vuitton
For the launch, four variations are on the table: white mother-of-pearl and steel, used for the first time in the Color Blossom universe; mother-of-pearl with pale pink hues and rose gold, amazonite and yellow gold, and another rose-gold version with a mother-of-pearl dial, snow-set with more than 100 white diamonds — just under a carat’s worth.
“We wished to reinterpret an iconic jewelry collection, presenting a women’s timepiece with a jewelry spirit,” said Matthieu Hegi, artistic director at La Fabrique du Temps Louis Vuitton. “With the mother-of-pearl or hardstone dials, or a diamond-set case, there is also an inherently precious essence, which perfectly reflects the Color Blossom collection.”
The gemstone dials were a technical challenge.
Take the stamping process to inscribe the railtrack motif that helps read the time while accentuating the flower form, where precise calculations were needed to avoid breaking the slices of mineral or organic materials cut between 0.3 to 0.6mm thin. That’s a third of the thickness of the stones used in Color Blossom’s jewelry designs.
The Color Blossom watches
Courtesy of Louis Vuitton
Precision machinery was also used to give the stones a delicate curve that echoes the rest of the Color Blossom line. Each dial is hand-polished at La Fabrique des Arts, the specialized crafts arm of Vuitton’s watchmaking workshop.
Launched in 2015, the Color Blossom collection spans rings, pendants, bracelets and earrings reprising the motifs of monogram canvas that is celebrating its 130th anniversary this year. Over the years it has grown to seven stone combinations, with sodalite as the latest addition launched in March
Like its jewelry counterparts, the quartz-powered watch is also expected to come in further stone variations in coming years. Prices start at 4,600 euros for the steel Color Blossom version and go up to 19,000 euros for the diamond-set rose-gold model.
