The opening days of January 2026 brought remarkable news from Geneva. LVMH Watch Week arrived once again, and with it came a collection presentation that signals a decisive moment in Louis Vuitton’s horological journey. Under the direction of Jean Arnault, the Maison has transformed itself into something altogether different from what it was merely four years ago. This is no longer a brand dipping its toes into watchmaking. This is a full-fledged manufacture with genuine technical authority.
The presentation centred on the Escale collection and the continued evolution of the Tambour line. But what impressed most was the quantity and quality of new in-house calibres. Four new movements, each crafted entirely within La Fabrique du Temps Louis Vuitton, each designed with a distinct purpose. This is what serious watchmaking looks like.
The Tiger’s Eye Escale: Where Stone Becomes Case
Among the new offerings is a watch that captures the essence of Louis Vuitton‘s particular approach to timepieces. The Escale Tiger’s Eye represents a continuation of something the Maison began with the turquoise and malachite models released in 2025. They have taken ornamental stonework to a place most watchmakers would consider impossible.
The dial is tiger’s eye. The case ring is tiger’s eye. Both are mined from a single stone where possible, selected for colour harmony and pattern flow. The lugs, bezel, crown and caseback are finished in yellow gold, an addition to the Escale collection that brings warmth to the composition. At 40 millimetres, the watch sits comfortably on any wrist, neither oversized nor apologetic about its presence.
The movement inside is the proven calibre LFT023, self-winding with a 22-karat rose gold micro-rotor. It beats at 28,800 vibrations per hour and offers 50 hours of power reserve. The chronometer certification from the Geneva Chronometric Observatory provides assurance of precision. Everything here works in service of the dial, allowing the stone to remain the focal point.
The strap is Savannah brown saffiano leather. It echoes the earthiness of the stone itself. A yellow gold pin buckle closes the arrangement. This is a watch limited to just 30 pieces, and pricing sits around €65,500. For a watch entirely crafted around natural stone, with significant hand-selection and case fabrication, the proposition feels honest.
The Tambour Convergence Guilloché: Time Through Texture
A year after introducing the Tambour Convergence, Louis Vuitton has added a third variant to the collection. Where previous models employed polished surfaces and diamond setting, this new version celebrates the art of hand-turned guillochage.
The case measures 37 millimetres in rose gold. The dial appears almost alive with light. Moving outward from the time display, one encounters a series of concentric waves—a classical pattern that requires a rose engine from 1850 to produce. Then comes the centre, where radiating rays emanate from the guichets. This pattern demanded an entirely custom cam, developed over six months of trials, using a straight-line engine from 1935.
The depth of cutting is nearly three times what conventional dial guillochage requires. Why? Because the final hand-polishing occurs after the engraving. The guillocheur must cut deeper to ensure the lines remain sharp and defined. Approximately 16 hours of labour goes into each piece. One person, alone with a machine and gold, for 16 hours.
Inside beats the LFT MA01.01, the first movement entirely designed and manufactured by La Fabrique du Temps Louis Vuitton. It is automatic, running at 4 hertz with 45 hours of power reserve. The movement employs transparent jewels rather than the traditional ruby-coloured synthetic stones, a contemporary signature that echoes across all recent Louis Vuitton calibres.
The dial displays hours and minutes through rotating discs, visible through two arched windows. It is an unconventional approach to time display, yet it works with surprising clarity. The dial is paired with a blue calfskin strap and rose gold buckle. Pricing stands at €58,500. This is a watch that rewards close inspection, and close inspection is what the guillochage invites.
The Escale Worldtime and Worldtime Tourbillon: Icons Reborn
The Worldtime has been part of the Escale story since 2014. It was the watch that established the collection’s identity. For this generation, Louis Vuitton has reimagined it entirely.
The standard version arrives in platinum for the first time. The case measures 40 millimetres with a refined architecture that respects the signature trunk-inspired lugs. The dial features a hand-painted worldtime ring displaying 24 cities with flags inspired by Louis Vuitton’s own design heritage, the diamond-stitched trunk lining, the Damier pattern, the Monogram flowers. Each flag is applied individually using a fine-tipped brush. 35 colours, applied one by one, with drying between each application. An entire week to complete a single dial.
The movement is the new LFT VO 12.01, an in-house calibre developed specifically for this complication. It runs at 4 hertz with a 62-hour power reserve. The jumping hour mechanism provides clarity whilst the entire worldtime ring rotates beneath. The caseback reveals a saffron-coloured sapphire set into the platinum, a subtle signature of the precious metal and a detail that references Louis Vuitton’s corporate identity.
The Worldtime Tourbillon takes this concept further. Here, the flags are no longer painted. Instead, they are executed in grand feu enamel, a technique requiring 40 separate firings at temperatures ranging from 730 to 840 degrees Celsius. The most delicate colours—the soft pinks and vibrant greens—are applied last, as they can withstand only one or two additional firings. The result, after two weeks of labour by a Master Enameller, is a dial of extraordinary depth and luminosity.
At the centre sits a flying tourbillon shaped as a Louis Vuitton Monogram flower. Unlike the standard Worldtime, this movement—the LFT VO 05.01—required a complete architectural rethinking. The flying cage occupies the central space where the city disc rotates around it. One revolution every sixty seconds. The open design enhances the play of light, drawing the eye to what most minute repeaters hide from view.
Both models sit on blue calfskin straps with platinum buckles. The Worldtime is priced at €94,500. The Worldtime Tourbillon commands €250,000. At this level, the distinction between watchmaking and fine art becomes genuinely blurred.
The Escale Twin Zone: Solving an Elegant Problem
Travel complications have long served two masters. The world time watch shows all 24 zones simultaneously. The dual-time watch shows two specific zones with simplicity. But what of the traveller who ventures into regions operating on half-hour offsets? Delhi runs on half-hour time. So does Newfoundland. So does several regions across the world.
Louis Vuitton has addressed this with the Escale Twin Zone. The watch employs a new in-house movement, the LFT VO15.01, that manages what few others have achieved: four hands mounted on a single axis. The full-bodied hands display local time. The skeletonised hands display home time. Both the hours and the minutes can be adjusted independently, allowing any two time zones in the world to be displayed with complete precision, including those with non-standard offsets.
The rose gold version features a silvery dial engraved with meridians and parallels, cartographic lines that speak to the watch’s purpose. The minute track is surrounded by an opaline flange punctuated with gold studs recalling the nails of the lozine bindings on Louis Vuitton’s historic trunks. The movement offers 68 hours of power reserve. Water resistance extends to 50 metres.
The platinum high-jewellery edition shifts the aesthetic entirely. The dial becomes aventurine, a stone that captures light like a starry sky. Around it sits the minute flange, set with 120 baguette-cut diamonds totalling 2.15 carats. The bezel and case sides feature 170 additional baguette diamonds of 7.15 carats. Blue studs denote the hours. The crown carries a rose-cut diamond. The buckle holds 11 more. In total, 302 diamonds across the watch, weighing approximately 10 carats. The caseback once again features a saffron sapphire.
The rose gold Twin Zone is priced at approximately €52,000. The platinum high-jewellery edition reaches €229,000. For those who travel seriously, the twin zone complication removes a genuine point of friction from the experience.
The Escale Minute Repeater: Pure Artistry
The minute repeater stands alone among watch complications. When you press the slide, gears and hammers engage. Two tones chime the hours. One tone chimes the quarters. A rapid sequence chimes the minutes. It is a watch that speaks in sound, a mechanical announcement of time itself.
Louis Vuitton’s new Minute Repeater combines this with a jumping hour display and a retrograde minute hand. The case is 40 millimetres in rose gold. The dial presents a flammé guilloché pattern—created on a traditional rose engine, requiring up to 60 hours of skilled labour per piece. The pattern radiates from the centre, creating visual movement even before the watch begins to function.
The large aperture at six o’clock displays the jumping hour through a bevel and polish technique called bassiné, which enhances legibility through controlled light reflection. The retrograde minute hand glides back to zero with measured grace, damped by an integrated system that prevents abrupt motion.
The movement is the LFT SO13.01, a manual-winding calibre developed entirely in-house. It contains 432 components. The power reserve extends to 80 hours. The frequency sits at 21,600 vibrations per hour—slower than most movements, which allows for the auditory complexity of the minute repeater mechanism to function without interference.
When you wear this watch and engage the repeater slide, you are experiencing something rare in contemporary watchmaking: a living, breathing mechanical conversation between human intention and horological physics. The sound is the language.
The repeater is priced at €350,000. It arrives on a beige calfskin strap with an 18-karat rose gold buckle. This is not a watch for everyone. It is a watch for those who understand that some things simply cannot be measured in practical terms alone.
The Camionnette: A Living History
Perhaps the most whimsical addition to the collection is not a watch at all, but rather an object of time. The Camionnette is a miniature reproduction of the legendary delivery trucks that served Louis Vuitton in the early 20th century.
The standard version is constructed from lightweight aluminium and steel, painted in saffron and sibylline blue. The hood features a Monogram flower. The radiator displays a flame-blued Louis Vuitton signature. The rims are decorated with tiny Monogram flowers. The licence plate reads LV 1854. Inside the boot sits a miniature Monogram trunk, complete with its own brass hardware and wood frame.
The movement is a manual-winding L’Epée 1839 calibre, specially developed for this purpose. It possesses 215 components and an 8-day power reserve. Hours and minutes rotate on cylinders visible beneath the hood, where an engine would normally exist. The escapement sits at the centre of the cabin, visible through the windscreen and dome windows.
To set and wind the movement, one employs a golden key stored in the boot—a poetic reference to the hand-cranks that once awakened the engines of historic vehicles. A limited edition of 15 pieces exists in gilded metal, embellished with snow-set diamonds, guilloché Damier patterns, and baguette-cut sapphires for the taillights. Each piece requires 15 hours of guillochage work.
The standard version is priced at CHF 57,500. The precious edition is available on request. This is not timekeeping in the conventional sense. It is storytelling made mechanical. It is the romance of travel crystallised into an object that moves.
A House Transformed
Four years ago, Louis Vuitton was still working primarily with external movements. Today, the Maison produces its own calibres. Today, it operates a full manufacture with genuinely specialised ateliers devoted to different crafts, metallurgy, enamelling, guillochage, savoir-faire of all varieties.
The collection presented at LVMH Watch Week 2026 represents a maturation. The watches are no longer experiments. They are statements. The Tiger’s Eye Escale demonstrates confidence in working with difficult materials. The Tambour Convergence Guilloché showcases decorative mastery. The new Worldtime models honour history whilst advancing technical capability. The Twin Zone solves a real problem. The Minute Repeater competes directly with the world’s finest. The Camionnette reminds us why travel matters.
Jean Arnault has guided this transformation with patience and vision. Michel Navas and Matthieu Hegi—the Master Watchmaker and Artistic Director respectively, have provided the technical foundation and creative framework. The artisans at La Fabrique du Temps have executed work of extraordinary precision and beauty.
This is what happens when a heritage house commits genuinely to watchmaking. Not as a commercial exercise, but as an extension of its own DNA. Louis Vuitton has always been about travel. It has always been about the romance of movement from one place to another. Now, that philosophy finds its expression in movements that beat 28,800 times per hour, in dials hand-painted over weeks, in cases sculpted from stone, in complications that serve the traveller’s real needs.
The watches presented at LVMH Watch Week 2026 belong to a manufacture that has come of age.
