The latest version of Louis Vuitton’s Escale dress watch is a masterclass in dial-making techniques.
The platinum-cased limited-edition has a stunning blue dial that is made using a combination of traditional and cutting-edge techniques.
The dial is decorated using guilloché as well as grand feu enamel using the traditional techniques of both champlevé and flinqué.
Each handmade dial starts as a solid gold disc, which is milled to create a small raised lip at the edge that then holds the enamel at its centre.
The recessed centre is then engraved on a hand-operated rose engine to create the radial guilloche pattern.
An enameller then takes the enamel pigments – coloured glass ground to a fine powder – and mixes them with water and oil.
The mixture is then carefully painted onto the guilloche centre of the dial, filling the recessed cell, and this technique is called champlevé.
The dial is then fired in an oven at 800°C or more, melting the enamel and fusing it to the solid gold dial base.
Painting and firing is repeated until the desired dial finish is achieved.
The dial shows the guilloche through the translucent enamel, a method often known as flinqué enamel.
These are traditional techniques, but in a modern twist, the platinum hour indices are all individually rivetted to the enamel dial.
Because of the difficulty of drilling into enamel, the holes are burnt into the dial using a precision laser.
So a combination of both old and ultra-modern methods have been used to make this watch.
The hour and minute hands are 18k white gold, while the seconds hand is in lightweight titanium, in order to make less of an energy demand on the mainspring.
It is powered by chronometer rated LFT023 automatic movement with 22k gold micro-rotor, visible through a sapphire crystal caseback.
The case is 39mm in diameter and water-resistant to 50m.
It comes on a blue calf leather with a platinum pin buckle.
The Louis Vuitton Escale Platinum is a limited edition of 50 watches and costs around $83,000.