BY JOVAN KRSTEVSKI
Louis Erard has taken the veil off its latest collection, and, like many of its recent releases, this new collection is hell-bent on bridging the gap between luxury and affordability. The new trio of Louis Erard Excellence watches takes the popular and distinctive Regulator layout and places it above a stunning landscape of green and blue dials crafted from gemstones and mineral glass.
While the dials are the main talking point with these new watches, let us begin by looking at the things they have in common. First and foremost is the charming regulator display. Featuring separate tracks for hours, minutes, and seconds, the regulator arrangement is an uncommon and distinctive take on timekeeping. In this instance, Louis Erard has gone with snailed slightly overlapping silver registers for hours and seconds and a printed white minute track with numerals at intervals of 10. Time is indicated using Louis Erard’s signature elegantly styled fir tree-inspired hands, which are well proportioned, making it a breeze to read the time immediately.
Moving onto the case, this new trio comes equipped with a round stainless-steel case that measures 42mm in diameter, has a thickness of 12.5mm, and a wearable lug to lug measurement of 49.6mm. The case is fully polished and features a grippy crown at 3, which is a normal push-pull unit. Water-resistance is limited to just 50 meters. Ticking inside the case is the automatic Sellita calibre SW266-1 in élaboré grade. This movement comprises 31 jewels, operates at a frequency of 4 Hz, and offers an autonomy of around 38 hours when fully wound. The movement is visible through the exhibition case back but is quite basic in terms of decoration. Now onto the individual references.
Excellence Régulateur Aventurine
Featuring a dark bluish-black color with tiny white spots throughout, the Aventurine dial on this watch mimics the scene of a beautiful starry night sky. It provides the perfect backdrop to the silver registers and the crisp white printing. The watch would come attached to a deep blue calf nubuck leather strap with tone-on-tone stitching.
Excellence Régulateur Lapis-Lazuli
Lapis-Lazuli, like Aventurine, is a blue semi-precious stone. However, there are a few noteworthy differences between the two. Firstly, the hue of blue on the Lapis-Lazuli is much more intense and bright, and secondly, the abstract inclusions have yellow/golden tone offering a good contrast to the blue background. Overall, this is a blue watch that treads the fine line between sporty and dressy. The watch would come attached to an “Oceania” blue calf nubuck leather strap.
Excellence Régulateur Malachite
If we talk about color trends in the current horology landscape, green will easily make it to the top three. The Malachite dial on this watch has a vibrant verdant green color with smooth flowing lines that enhance visual interest. This, in my opinion, is the boldest of the trio and the one that stands out the most. The watch would come attached to a green calf nubuck leather strap.
The three new Excellence Régulateur watches are limited to 99 pieces per variation, and all models will retail for CHF 2,900, which sounds like a terrific value for what is on offer.
