A Fascinating Tour of Louis Vuitton’s La Fabrique du Temps in Geneva

More recently, in 2023, Louis Vuitton collaborated with renowned watchmaker Rexhep Rexhepi and his Atelier Akrivia to create the LVRR-01 Chronographe à Sonnerie, a groundbreaking double-faced chronograph with a chiming complication.

Finally, four Louis Vuitton timepieces, including the reinvented Tambour and the LVRR-01 Chronographe à Sonnerie, are finalists for a 2024 GPHG award, a feat that few brands can match.

In 2014, Louis Vuitton opened a 4,500 m2 factory in Meyrin, Geneva, combining La Fabrique du Temps with the team of Leman Cadrans, a Geneva-based top dial-maker acquired in 2012. With this facility, Louis Vuitton’s high-end watches were finally able to win the coveted Poinçon de Genève (Geneva Seal), starting with the Voyager Flying Tourbillon in 2016.
 

Today, La Fabrique du Temps remains under the leadership of Navas and Barbasini and stands as a cornerstone of Louis Vuitton’s presence in haute horlogerie, having developed some twenty movements, including automatic and mystery calibers, flying tourbillons, worldtimers, chronographs, and jacquemart automatons, for the brand.

It’s a collaborative effort between multiple teams to ensure a design can both meet the product requirements and be successfully executed by the engineering teams. That is why we wanted to visit the design and prototyping teams first.

Many of Louis Vuitton’s clients request customizations, and it is in the design and prototyping department where feasibility studies and prototyping take place. However, what impressed me most was their customer-focused approach when developing products.
 

Moreover, 3D printers enable them to rapidly prototype movements and case designs, so they can get a hands-on evaluation without much fuss.

Next, we entered the watchmaker’s workshop, a large, quiet space divided into several sections, where each watchmaker was deeply focused on their work.

Every individual was responsible for assembling a watch from start to finish. The more junior members worked on less complex models, like the new Tambour, while the most experienced master watchmakers handled intricate pieces such as minute repeaters and tourbillons.
 

In the area dedicated to high-complication timepieces, a table displayed several Louis Vuitton watches for us to examine up close.

The piece that captivated me most was a mystery flying tourbillon. It was fascinating to see how the gears seemed to float in midair, made possible by the ingenious use of a sapphire disc.
 

We also had the chance to handle the award-winning Tambour Carpe Diem and observe how the hour and minute indicators appear at the push of a button.
 

Lastly, we were drawn to the Escale collection, characterized by the iconic design codes of Louis Vuitton’s trunks. These timepieces exuded elegance and classic style on the wrist.
 

Next, we entered the enamel painting room, where four or five artisans, all women, worked diligently in front of microscopes, and at the far end of the room, a technician placed dials into an oven.
 

One artisan, noticing our curiosity, brought out a recently completed dial to show us. It was the reverse face of the Louis Vuitton x Rexhep Rexhepi LVRR-01 Chronographe à Sonnerie.
 

As you can see, the grand feu enamel dial, with its classic chronograph design, features red minute markers and blue second markers. The precision and artistry of the crisp markings and hand-painted numerals left us in awe.

Luxury timepieces often come with rare and exotic dial materials, and we saw plenty of them during our visit to the La Fabrique du Temps’ fascinating storage area.
 

In fact, we observed an array of extraordinary materials, including meteorite, malachite, aventurine, ruby, onyx, opal, jade, mother-of-pearl, and many others we couldn’t name.
 

(Photography by Pierre Vogel)