The last time we brought you news of a Louis Erard x Alain Silberstein collaboration, it was one of their most ambitious efforts to date, a Swiss tourbillon coming in under CHF 16,000, which brings a different angle to Louis Erard’s stated goal of making luxury watchmaking accessible. When that watch was released, Louis Erard promised additional collaborations to follow, and today we see the next step in their partnership. The Louis Erard x Alain Silberstein Smile-Day adds a new colorway to a fan favorite format, and shows that there’s still gas left in the collaboration tank.
The Smile-Day is a stand-alone version of the “La Semaine” concept that we’ve seen Louis Erard and Silberstein experiment with a few times now. This watch essentially takes a day-date complication and replaces the “day” with a series of smiling emojis. It doesn’t actually help you keep track of the calendar, but it’s a fun and whimsical idea, and has always felt like a great match to Silberstein’s playful use of color and shape. The wearer is invited to adjust the “day” to the emoji that most fits their mood, or perhaps the emoji that most fits the mood they want to be in.
Previous versions of this watch have appeared with black and drab green dials, but this has a very different personality with a light gray dial. It’s complemented by light blue hour markers and a matching oversized minute hand, with a red hour hand and bright yellow seconds hand. As with earlier examples, the new Smile-Day is powered by the Sellita SW220 movement with 38 hours of power reserve.
The case might be the star feature of the Smile-Day. We’ve seen it before, of course, but only in these Silberstein collaborations, which makes it feel special within the Louis Erard lineup. It’s 40mm and crafted from titanium, so it’s very light not just because of the material used but also the airy design, which puts polished ergonomic brackets around the circular case. It’s a bit of cliche to say that it’s both futuristic and retro at the same time, but it truly is unlike anything we’ve seen (at least at this price point) while still feeling like it’s based in a sculptural and architectural style of watchmaking.
At one point not too long ago, Louis Erard hinted that they would retire the Alain Silberstein collaborations in favor of other projects, but it seems like at this point there’s no real plan to slow down. While some might gripe that continuing to produce endless iterations of the same set of watches makes all of them less special, this type of synergy between a brand and an independent watchmaker is rare unto itself, and as long as there is interest from the collecting public, I’m happy to see new versions of these watches pop up now and then.
The retail price of the Louis Erard x Alain Silberstein Smile-Day is CHF $4,000. It’s a limited edition of 178 pieces. Louis Erard
