Countdown to the ONLY WATCH Auction, 28th September, 2013. Post #23: Louis Vuitton Tambour Spin Time Regatta

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Today we present the Tambour Spin Time Regatta from Louis Vuitton.


LOUIS VUITTON


The beginning of the French fashion house, long regarded as the worlds most valuable luxury brand, began with its founding in 1854 by Louis Vuitton.

Vuitton had seen a way to make luggage more practical. It was a time when ships and trains were making the world a much smaller place and the brand introduced a flat bottomed trunnk made of light weight trianon canvas which were airtight and also easy to stack. The design caught on quickly and by 1867, following the participation in the Paris universal exhibition, Louis Vuitton found it necessary to protect his trademark from imitators. The now famous beige and brown striped design appeared in 1876 and in 1888, three years after the opening of the first London store on Oxford St, Vuitton created the Damier Canvas patter which bore a logo that reads "marque L. Vuitton déposée", a registered trademark.

Louis Vuitton died in 1892, passing the company's management onto his son, Georges Vuitton. He began a campaign to build the company into a worldwide corporation, exhibiting the company's products at the Chicago World's Fair in 1893. In 1896, the company launched the signature Monogram Canvas and protected the design with worldwide patents. 1901 saw the release of the Steamer Bag, designed to fit inside the luggage trunks.

The company opened what was, at the time, the largest travel-goods store in the world. The Louis Vuitton Building on the Champs-Elysees. Within a few short years, boutique stores had been opened in New York, Bombay, Washington, London, Alexandria and Buenos Aires. Georges Vuitton died in 1936 and control passed to his son, Gaston-Louis Vuitton.

 In 1977 the company merged with Moët et Chandon and Hennessy creating the LVMH, a luxury goods conglomerate which now owns more than 60 companies including well known wine, spirits, fashion, perfumes and cosmetics, watches and jewellery and selective retailer brands - Louis Vuitton, Moët & Chandon, Hennessey, Hublot, Tag Heuer, Zenith, Bvlgari, De Beers, Fendi, Mercier, Givenchy, Christian Dior, Donna Karan, Marc Jacobs, DFS Galleria, Emilio Pucci, Ruinart, Glenmorangie, Guerlain, Loewe and Dom Perignon among others.


Louis Vuitton continues to produce luxury luggage and over the years have added leather good, shoes, jewellery, sunglasses, books, accessories and, in 2002, added the Tambour watch collection.

As with many other luxury brands, counterfeit merchandise is a very significant problem and has been plaguing the brand for over 150 years. As it one of the most heavily counterfeited brands it is an issue that is taken very seriously. Directly employed by the company are a specialised team of lawyers and investigators pursuing offenders throughout the world. A statement from parent company, LMVH, states that "Some 60 people at various levels of responsibility working full-time on anti-counterfeiting in collaboration with a wide network of outside investigators and a team of lawyers." Authentic Louis Vuitton merchandise is strictly distributed to over 130 brand owned boutiques, from Tokyo to Marrakech, New York to Melbourne, and a small number of select luxury department stores. Recently, an online store has begun operating through the main website.

In a 2012 Bloomberg article, the brand was valued at US$25.9 billion dollars and for six consecutive years (2006–2012) Louis Vuitton has been named the world's most valuable luxury brand.

The video below features the LV Tambour Spin Time Regatta, upon which this years entry for Only Watch is based.




Louis Vuitton Tambour Spin Time Regatta

Blue sunray effect dial set with 18ct gold applied indexes and numerals and with a hand-engraved 18ct gold boat, designed by Paul Pettavino (sail and flag are made of 18ct white gold hand covered with white enamel with a blue and red LV logo, Hull made of pink gold hand painted with Paul's name in red.) Unique piece.

Catalogue Description:

LOUIS VUITTON TA MBOUR Spin Time Regatta for "ONLY WATCH 2013 1/1" A fine and unique 18K pink gold self-winding chronograph wristwatch with 5-minute regatta countdown and personalized dial design by Paul Pettavino. Accompanied by custom Louis Vuitton trunk and Certificate.

C. 18K pink gold, crown and push buttons at 2 and 4 O’clock over molded with rubber, sapphire crystal, caseback engraved with Monogram pattern and specific mention "ONLY WATCH 2013 1/1." D. Blue sunray effect dial set with 18K gold applied indexes and numerals and with a hand-engraved 18K gold boat, designed by Paul Pettavino (sail & flag are made of 18K white gold hand covered with white enamel with a blue and red LV logo, Hull made of pink gold hand painted with Paul’s name in red), 18K pink gold hours and minutes hands. Red chronograph hours and minutes hands, ONLY WATCH printed in red, between 12:00 and 2:00 on the flange. M. LV156, 35 jewels, Automatic Manufacture Calibre developed and assembled in-house at La Fabrique du Temps Louis Vuitton, 12-hour chronograph, 5-minute regatta countdown indicated by the 5 rotating cubes, number of components: 360, power reserve: 48 hours, oscillations: 28 800 per hour.

Estimate: 60,000 EUR - 80,000 EUR

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Post by Pawnbank.

Links to all the articles in our countdown can be found on the original post

Countdown to the ONLY WATCH Auction, 28th September, 2013. Post #18: Hublot, Bright Red Ceramic "Classic Fusion"

<<< Post 17: Harry Winston                            Post #19: Ikepod >>>

Today we present the Bright Red Ceramic "Classic Fusion" by Hublot

Hublot

Hublot was founded by Carlo Crocco in 1980 after his departure from the Italian Binda Group, best known for Breil Watches. He formed MDM Geneve and designed a new watch that he called the Hublot (French for 'porthole'). The watch featured the first natural rubber strap in the history of watchmaking and the strap alone took three years of research to create. Despite the watch failing to attract a single customer at the 1980 Basel Watch Fair, it quickly became a success reaching $2m in sales in the first year.

The company continued on and Crocco sought the right person that could oversee his watchmaking business, while he focused on his design work and many activities for the Hand-in-Hand Foundation, a charity helping deprived children all around the world. In 2003 he met with Jean-Claude Biver, then president of Swatch Group's Omega division and, in May 2004, became CEO and minority shareholder in Hublot Watches.

Upon his arrival, Biver set about creating a new flagship collection that was unveiled in Basel in April 2005, with the Hublot "Big Bang" chronograph. It was an immediate success and orders increased threefold in one year. A few months later, in November 2005, the Big Bang chronograph was awarded internationally, receiving the "2005 Design Prize" in the "Geneva Watchmaking Grand Prix", the "Sports Watch Prize" at the "Watch of the Year" ceremony in Japan, and the Middle Eastern Prize for the "Best Oversized Watch" at the Editor’s Choice "Watch of the Year" in Bahrain. Following the arrival of Biver in 2004, the brand's sales hit 24 million Swiss francs and by the end of 2006, sales were bordering on the 100 million Swiss franc mark.

To date, Hublot has 50 Boutiques all over the world. In February 2007, Hublot opened its first mono-brand store in Paris, in the Rue Saint-Honoré. The second was opened in the summer of that year, in the Hôtel Byblos, Saint-Tropez. Today, Hublot has a flagship store on Bond Street, London. Stores in the United States are currently located in Atlanta, Bal Harbour, Beverly Hills, Boca Raton, Dallas, Las Vegas, New York City, and Palm Beach.

In October 2012 they opened their newest store in Las Vegas and before that, a store in Ulan Bataar, Mongolia.


At BaselWorld 2009, Hublot unveiled a new method of detecting counterfeit watches. Using a WISeKey smart card, the system authenticates watches on Hublot's servers. The system went live in August 2009. WISeKey had developed a revolutionary technology against counterfeiting named WISeAuthentic. It can digitally authenticate an object is genuine. The technology consists of creating an electronic guarantee certificate with an algorithm, which contains the item identity code and is securely stored on a SmartCard that also enables privileged access to a reserved space on the brand’s website. The system can provide assistance to the police and customs officials. In addition to offering personalized solutions for digitally identifying authentic brand items, WISeAuthentic also provides direct sales information to the manufacturer and allows control over the grey market.

"In the watch industry we are seeing a significant increase in counterfeit goods,It was imperative for us as a company to find a way to not only protect our watches but also those who were purchasing them. WISekey has a strong track record in security and authentication and when looking for a partner to help us in the fight against counterfeiting we knew WISekey was the right choice for us."

- Jean-Claude Biver, CEO of Hublot.

To increase the public profile of their brand Hublot have engaged in a number of sponsorship deals. In 2008, they agreed a sponsorship deal with the football club Manchester United, worth £ 4 million a year. That same year they provided special versions of their Big Bang watches to referees officiating at UEFA Euro 2008. In March 2010, Hublot was appointed the Official Watchmaker of Formula 1. Hublot have released a number of Formula One themed watches as a committed partner to Formula One, including celebrating the return of the US Grand Prix to Austin, Texas in November 2012 with the Hublot F1 King Power Austin.

In April 2010 Hublot became the official time keeper of the 2010 FIFA World Cup and the 2014 FIFA World Cup. They have also been involved in a tie-up with the Financial Times, sponsoring the newspaper's iPad app.

Hublot and Ferrari announced during the 2011 Ferrari World Finals at Mugello a long-term strategic partnership which will officially start on 1 January 2012, making Hublot Ferrari's "Official Watch" and "Official Timekeeper". The partnership has so far been slowly built on two timepieces, the Hublot Big Bang Ferrari Magic Gold and Big Bang Ferrari Titanium, that Hublot have consistently toured at world locations throughout 2012.

They were also sponsor of the FIS Nordic World Ski Championships 2011 in Oslo.

Hublot continued their strong sponsorship and partnership activities in 2012 with becoming the Official Watch of the UEFA EURO 2012 tournament and Official Timekeeper of the tournament.[12]

In April 2012 Hublot Partnered the Swiss Confederation at the World Expo 2012 in South Korea, a 3 month world event at which they displayed their technically brilliant Divers Watch the Hublot Oceanographic 4000 King Gold White, which has been tested to a water resistance of 5000m and is certified water resistant to 4000m.

Hublot also partnered with the Archaeological Museum of Athens in presenting Hublot's “Tribute to the Antikythera Mechanism” movement. The Hublot movement officially joined the National Museum’s collection on the 5th April 2012 and will now be on display alongside the remains of the original mechanism.

In January 2013, Scuderia Ferrari will have Hublot as its official sponsor for 2013 F1 Season.
Ambassador

At the opening ceremony for its first flagship store in Beijing, Biver introduced Jet Li as Hublot's next brand ambassador. Li is the brand’s first Asian ambassador as well as the first film star to work as a Hublot ambassador. Other brand ambassadors include former footballer Diego Maradona; deceased Formula 1 driver Ayrton Senna’s family and Institute; world's fastest man Usain Bolt and formerly, the Manchester United football team. Formula One Management President and CEO, Bernie Ecclestone, was attacked by four men and had his Hublot watch stolen. He later worked with Hublot to use his bruised face in an ad campaign with the tag line, "See what people will do for a Hublot."

Bright Red Ceramic "Classic Fusion"

World Premiere of a watch made with bright red ceramic. Bright red is the colour inaugurating this new process, in tribute to the red of Monaco for the 5th Edition of Only Watch. The polished satin-finished black ceramic case houses a fully skeleton-worked tourbillon movement with an assertively elegant and contemporary design. It features a 5-day power reserve. In a little nod to the new red ceramic, the tourbillon has been enhanced on the sapphire dial by a little anodised red aluminium ring, while the black alligator strap has been stitched with red thread onto black rubber, making it as flexible as ever and a pleasure to wear.

Catalogue Description:

HUBLOT RED'N'BLA CK SKELETON TOUR BILON FOR ONLY WATCH Hublot Classic Fusion, Reference 505. CI.0140.LR.OWM13 A fine and unique polished, satin-finished black ceramic skeleton tourbillon wristwatch with red ceramic bezel - a World Premiere: this is the first time that a bright colored ceramic has been created. A ccompanied by a fitted box and certificate.

C. “Classic Fusion,” polished and satin-finished black ceramic bezel, red ceramic with 6 H-shaped titanium screws, crystal sapphire with interior/exterior anti-reflective coating, and metallised silver logo, bezel lug black composite resin, crown polished black ceramic with Hublot logo, caseback polished ceramic with sapphire crystal with interior anti-reflective treatment, water-resistance 3 ATM. D. Sapphire with anti-reflective coating on topside/underside, polished black coated indexes, indexes, hands polished, black coated. M. MHUB6010.H1.1, Hand-Wound Skeleton Tourbillon - 5 days of power reserve - entirely conceived, developed and produced in-house by Hublot Manufacture. 155 components, 19 jewels, frequency 21'600 Alt/h, black alligator strap stitched onto black rubber, red stitching.

Estimate: 80,000 EUR - 110,000 EUR

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Post by Pawnbank.

Links to all the articles in our countdown can be found on the original post