And the Beat Goes On

Regular readers who have accumulated a QP archive will know that the cover of the magazine’s landmark 100th issue was given over to Louis Vuitton’s then all-new Tambour, following its Paris launch in the summer of 2023.

The original, created 21 years before, was offered as a quartz or mechanical three-hander, or a mechanical chronograph, but went on to spawn multiple variations on the theme as the years rolled by. There were tourbillons, alarms, and minute repeaters; special pieces for sailing and for diving; ‘connected’ and gem-encrusted designs; even an ‘Orientation’ model, with built-in compass.

What they all had in common, however, was that they were large, imposing and – to anyone who knew watches – entirely unmistakable thanks to their tambour, or drum-shaped, cases.

But when Louis Vuitton watch boss Jean Arnault announced the re-born Tambour two years ago, the first thing he told Q-P was that the model’s major flaw was the very size (both in terms of diameter and of thickness) that had always made it so distinctive. Some were as much as 48mm in diameter (and more than 13mm thick), so the new Tambour – at just 40mm across and a mere 8.3mm deep – certainly represented a dramatic re-boot.

The new model was offered first in steel and then in full yellow gold, full pink gold and steel with a pink-gold bezel to create a comprehensive collection of beautifully finished three-hand watches. The 2023 release felt like it confirmed one thing beyond doubt: that Louis Vuitton’s highly sophisticated timepieces were no longer just for the fashion crowd, but for the most serious horophiles.

The dramatic redesign came as a surprise to many, not least because the classic Tambour had been celebrated just the year before with the publication of a lavish book to mark its 20th anniversary.

But now that the new recruit has settled in and become simply ‘the’ Tambour, Arnault and team used Louis Vuitton's January 2025 debut at LVMH Watch Week to demonstrate that the smaller, slimmer case is no barrier to creating a range of models equally as diverse as those that evolved from the turn-of-the-century original.

Perhaps the most surprising is the ‘Convergence’, a name which, according to its makers, alludes both to the convergence of in-house crafts required to make it as well as to the physical operation of its mechanism.

Based on the historical ‘guichet’ design in which a digital time display is seen through a guichet or ‘opening’ in an otherwise solid cover, the system relies on the ‘convergence’ of the hours and minutes discs within the window. One of the earliest iterations of a guichet wristwatch was produced by Cartier during the 1920s (the ‘Tank à Guichets’), when interest in digital displays was growing and the system was seen as both convenient and practical, since substituting a crystal with a metal cover reduced the likelihood of serious damage.

In horology terms, the guichet watch has been more or less on the extinction list. As part of its revival, Louis Vuitton boasts an all-new movement to power the Convergence which, like its distinctive 37mm tambour case, was entirely designed, developed and made in-house.

Two versions are on offer, the first in 18-carat pink gold which, as the brand notes, can be expected to “gain a patina bestowed by daily wear” that will “record the passage of time on its exterior surface” (in other words – expect a few knocks and scrapes). The second version, however, is less likely to become anyone’s daily wear: its platinum case is spectacularly snow-set with 795 diamonds.

A more playful take on the Tambour came in the form of six new versions of the ‘Spin Time’ complication devised back in 2007 by master watchmakers Michel Navas and Enrico Barbasini and launched two years later.

Instrumental in Louis Vuitton’s decision to buy outright the pair’s Geneva-based haute horlogerie workshop La Fabrique du Temps in 2011, the Spin Time takes the form of a jumping hour display based on a system of revolving cubes inspired by the ‘flap’ boards used at airports and rail stations. Called Taiko Spin Time after a barrel-shaped Japanese drum, the six models are offered in 39.5mm (solid case back) and 42.5mm (open case back) diameters. Plain versions are made from white gold with ‘dolphin grey’ dials and matching time cubes, while bejewelled examples get a dial made from hawk’s eye, a lustrous, delicately grained quartz. The new arrivals get sleeker integrated lugs, mirrored and satin surfaces and the Vuitton script in relief within a recessed channel – making for one of the most complex cases ever produced by La Fabrique du Temps. 

Louis Vuitton highlights its travel credentials, meanwhile, with the Antipode model, which combines the jumping hour mechanism with what is claimed to be a ‘world-first’ travel time complication in which the times across 24 zones work in tandem with a day/night indication. A conventional hand points to the minutes, while the hours are indicated by a yellow arrowhead pointer mounted on a rotating disc etched with a world map. Local time is indicated by the minute hand and yellow pointer, with each of the 12 cubes of the Spin Time mechanism showing (uniquely) the time in two other cities.

The sixth and final model in this year’s Taiko Spin Time line-up, meanwhile, is the Air Flying Tourbillon, which, as the name suggests, combines ‘floating’ versions of the revolving cubes with a flying tourbillon positioned in the centre of the dial with a cage in the form of LV’s signature monogram flower.

If the evolution of the original Tambour is anything to go by, these imaginative new offshoots could be the beginning of another two decades of avant-garde creativity from the Parisian house. Such innovations should prove sufficient to warrant a second heavy tome dedicated to Louis Vuitton’s signature timepiece.