LOUIS VUITTON

Since the absorption by Louis Vuitton in

2014 of the independent Swiss atelier La Fabrique du Temps (the time factory), a series of intriguingly complicated timepieces has highlighted the luxury behemoth’s ambitions to be taken seriously in the world of high watchmaking. This year, for example, it revealed the stunning Tambour Carpe Diem, with its combination of automaton, jumpinghour, retrograde-minute and power-reserve functions, though the macabre skull and slithering gold serpent adorning the dial do somewhat limit its appeal. Perhaps less polarising is the 42.5mm-diameter Tambour Moon Tourbillon Volant Poinçon de Genève Sapphire, whose LV 90 skeleton calibre and mechanical complexity are fully revealed in a case hewn, as the name suggests, from a solid block of sapphire crystal, a process that requires days of meticulous machining and polishing. The first transparent watch to be accorded the famed Geneva Seal, it comes in three versions: colourless sapphire with a black alligator strap on PVD-treated titanium horns, pink sapphire with a matching strap on pinkgold horns or blue sapphire with blue strap on 950 platinum horns.