Getting outside Palexpo is essential during Watches & Wonders week. Not only because being inside the massive complex for days on end will quickly wreak havoc on your mental and physical health (it’s dry in there, and not seeing any natural light can’t be great for you), but because there’s so much watch related stuff happening in Geneva parallel to what’s going on at Watches & Wonders. Many smaller indies post up at hotels along Lake Geneva and take meetings with media and their dealer networks, and over the last three years these meetings have been some of our favorites to attend. One of them, with Louis Erard, produced an almost obscene level of interest. I think each of mentally bought a watch in the hour we spent chatting with CEO Manuel Emch.
The watch you see here, a new collaboration between Louis Erard and atelier Oï, is the only watch we can show you from that meeting. Everything else is under embargo, but will be revealed throughout the rest of the year. But man, I was glad to see this new limited edition on the table almost immediately after sitting down. It’s the same design as a watch in my own collection, featuring a dial made up of deeply cut striated ridges that fan out like a, well, like a fan, I guess. No markers or branding, but each ridge is effectively a minute marker, so telling the time is fairly straightforward after a brief adjustment period. This LE has a gold tone dial, which leaves a very different impression than my silvery gray version, a cooler and more sober alternative to this dial’s warmth.
Most Louis Erard limited editions are traditionally limited to 178 pieces. This one, though, is being produced in just 18 examples. I asked why in our meeting, and was told it was simply too challenging to produce in greater quantities. That made me feel pretty lucky to have one of my own, and should encourage anyone intrigued by the design to jump on the opportunity to pick one of these up as long as they happen to be available.
Specs for this limited edition match others in Louis Erard’s ongoing series of collaborative versions of their Excellence Regulator. That means a 42mm polished stainless steel case with a Sellita SW266-1 running inside it. For those who might be coming to this format for the first time, the “regulator” layout is fairly easy to get your arms around. The central hand reads the minutes (every fifth minute ridge has a darker tone to aid legibility), the hand at the bottom of the dial functions as a running seconds indicator, and the hand at the top reads the hours.
The retail price for the Le Régulateur Louis Erard x Atelier Oï is listed at CHF 3,750. Louis Erard
