With the complication having established itself as an iconic pillar of Louis Vuitton watchmaking, the Maison now debuts the Tambour Taiko Spin Time, an entirely new collection of watches — all limited editions — developed from the ground up to carry the complication into its next generation. In a first for the complication, the Tambour Taiko Spin Time collection is entirely powered by in-house movements developed by La Fabrique du Temps Louis Vuitton expressly for the collection.
The concept of the Spin Time emerged in from the talented minds of Michel Navas and Enrico Barbasini, veteran watchmakers who founded La Fabrique du Temps as a specialist in complicated movements. Having cumulatively spent decades at some of the most prestigious watchmakers in Switzerland, the pair were well versed in classical Haute Horlogerie.
But Michel Navas and Enrico Barbasini were also looking to innovate and invent in order to enrich their vision of watchmaking. Inspired by the overhead flap displays that show timetables in airports and railway stations, the duo devised the Spin Time as an unprecedented three-dimensional reinterpretation of the traditional jumping hours complication. Serendipitously, Louis Vuitton was just then seeking a new complication that would both define and expand its Haute Horlogerie repertoire, one that had to be both innovative and intimately linked to travel.
The Tambour Spin Time made its debut in , establishing Louis Vuitton as a maker of not merely timepieces, but creative complications. Still centred on the patented three-dimensional jumping cubes display, the Tambour Taiko Spin Time is nonetheless an entirely new collection, comprised of six limited-edition models, each conceived from the ground up as the ultimate refinement of the complication.
The collection debuts in The To underline the unity of the inaugural Tambour Taiko Spin Time models, all six variants are presented in 18k white gold cases with dials dressed in a dolphin grey hue that is restrained yet powerful and instantly recognisable. All the cubes are finished in the same dolphin grey hue, except for the cube indicating the current hour that displays a face in light grey. A form of grey-blue quartz prized for its lustrous colour and delicate graining; the mineral is being employed for the first time in Louis Vuitton watchmaking.
