For some reason I want to start this story with Mayakovsky’s words: “Louis Erard – bought it and am happy!” However, several factors prevent this: firstly, it is customary to pronounce it “Louis Erard”, which will affect the rhyme. Secondly, Mayakovsky did not pronounce such words. And finally, the Louis Erard brand is not the only author of these watches:


What is in front of us?

Today we are looking at a joint project of two designers, each of whom, however, managed to maintain recognition in this project: the brand Louis Erard and the man-brand Alain Silberstein. The peculiarity of this particular “model” is that it is a triptych, that is, the watches are conceived as a cycle, although they were previously presented in collections individually.

The cycle implies unity of style, external design, basic parameters, and, of course, the box:

Inside the box, the watches are initially laid out in such a way as to make it clear which model is central in meaning:


And, of course, it logically turns out to be a watch with a tourbillon.



General and different

All parts of this triptych have not only an obvious external similarity, but are also close in characteristics: these are watches in 40 mm cases, which have sapphire crystals, water resistance of 100 meters and are designed on the basis of Swiss calibers.

Meanwhile, the tourbillon is different in particular: the caliber of this watch was developed by the Swiss company BCP.

While the other two models are based on Sellita mechanisms.


Tourbillon watches do not have a stop-second function and require manual winding!

Regulator clocks

The Louis Erard brand actively promotes the idea of ​​regulator watches and at the same time actively collaborates with other designers! This allows them to find new interesting solutions for this form every time. In our case, we couldn’t do without such solutions either.

One of them is not immediately obvious:

We are talking about the “basic” model from the set, which, although stylistically it refers to regulators due to the trick with the extended minute hand, is still not a regulator. This is a classic three-hand watch with date and day of the week complications.

One of the interesting features worth noting here is the days of the week: they are placed in an oval above the date, but represent emoticons of different natures, from “sad” to “happy”, that is, from Monday to the weekend.

The other two models are already classic regulator watches, the essence of which is that the hours, minutes and seconds are distributed across different dials, and the hands – as a consequence – along different axes.


Of course, the watches have a lot in common. The design of the time indicators is repeated from model to model, and even on the three-hand watch the hour hand is a red triangle. The minute and second hands also repeat each other, and, what is not so typical, the second hand is added directly to the tourbillon in the most complicated model.

And if the concept of the original regulator is the concept of Louis Erard, then the design of the elements is the signature style of the Alain Silberstein brand, based on the aesthetics of minimalism and Bauhaus.

Undoubtedly, the simplest and most understandable model in this set will be the classic regulator:

This is a watch with a central minute hand, which is vertically surrounded by hours and seconds. Although regulators first appeared a long time ago, today this method of telling time still requires some skill.

However, here in any case it is “lightened” due to the rather contrasting execution of the watch itself.

Tourbillon

But “tourbillon watches”, in my opinion, are interesting not only because of the presence of the tourbillon itself.

The fact is that regulators were conceived as the most accurate watches! It is curious, but it was the desire to increase the accuracy and stability of watches that prompted Breguet to create the tourbillon.

In other words, here two ideas of watchmaking precision are intertwined, and the watch can be explained as “super-mega-maximum” precise – at least from the point of view of the design.

Accessories

All models maintain a uniform style at all levels, including accessories. The bodies are “suspended” on elastic, soft and comfortable quick-release straps with fixing Velcro.

The straps do not hide the watch calibers, and the back covers of the models are transparent:


Small conclusions

The watches turned out to be interesting as a triptych, but each model separately deserves attention. The concept of “generalization” did not prevent the brand from making each watch recognizable and special.

There is logic, meaning, and references to high watchmaking, but this is also played out with irony: thanks to Zilberstein’s design, the watch skillfully balances on the edge of seriousness and healthy watch humor.