A Different Kind Of Space Traveler: The Louis Vuitton Tambour Taiko Galactique, A Unique Take On The Jaquemart Repeater

The Louis Vuitton Tambour Taiko watches get their name from the Japanese taiko drum, which have been used since at least as early as the sixth century, for an enormous range of uses – anything from making announcements, to issuing orders to troops, to Buddhist and Shinto religious rituals. The drum shape of the Tambour case in this instance is a jumping off point into a different kind of auditory and visual experience – the Tambour Taiko Galactique is a minute repeater with jaquemarts, or “striking jacks” which is a term for animated figures which move in coordination with the striking of the gongs (cathedral gongs, in this case, which means that they circle the interior of the case twice, unlike standard repeater gongs, which do so once).

Traditionally, striking jacks were often animated figures that appeared to be striking bells, creating the illusion that the little automata were the ones chiming the time, but jacquemarts have been made which appear to perform many different kinds of actions in synchrony with the gongs, and in the case of the Galactique, there are a total of seven different animations on the dial.

The chimes are activated by a slide set into the flank of the very large white gold case – 46.7mm x 14.6mm; if this were a taiko drum it’d be the one known as the O-Daiko (the “big drum,” the largest and most impressively sonorous of taiko drums). The slide is gradient set with sapphires and two topaz gems. Activate the chimes, and the following happens along with the chiming of the time:

• The star to the lower left of the spacecraft starts to rotate
• The door of the spacecraft (or maybe I should say thruster, since that’s what LV is calling it) set with the LV monogram, starts to rotate
• The communications antenna begins to move back and forth
• The solar panel starts to rotate
• The astronaut begins to oscillate, as if floating in free fall
• The astronaut’s left arm moves as if to counterbalance …
• … the astronaut’s right arm, which begins to wave the Louis Vuitton flag.

As you can probably imagine all of this requires quite a lot of mechanical complexity; caliber LFT AU14.02 has a total of 459 components. The design is a follow on from a watch that LV launched in 2023 – the Tambour Jaquemart Minute Repeater 200th Anniversary, which is a unique piece that anticipated the design themes of the Taiko Galactique, and which you can see in action thanks to a video from the ever-reliable SJX. As you can see the total number of animations are the same, but the visual effects are very different; the Galactique, thanks to the astronaut in the foreground, is more visually dynamic. The movements in terms of architecture, look identical from the back except for the color of the plates and bridges but I would not be surprised if there were some changes under the dial side, since the mechanical loads of the striking jacks are slightly different.

Caliber LV200, 200th Anniversary Jacquemart Minute Repeater

Caliber LFT AU14.02, Taiko Tambour Galactique

The architecture of the movement in both cases has a kind of abstract relationship to the movements of heavenly bodies in their orbits. To some extent this is true of any traditionally designed watch movement, but I think in the case of the calibers LV 200/LFT AU14.02, the use of nested circles as an evocation of the planets is so consistent throughout the design of the caliber that it has to be deliberate. Certainly the use of blue coating on the caliber LV 200 is meant to echo the extraterrestrial journey illustrated on the dial.

On the dial side of the Tambour Taiko Galactique, there is the sort of no-holds barred exercise in deploying horological decorative arts which Louis Vuitton has used in so many of its high end automata and other watches, including last year’s Escale Métiers d’Art “Cabinet Of Wonders” trilogy. Primarily, the dial of the Galactique is a demonstration of four different enameling techniques: paillonné, champlevé, enamel miniature painting, and grisaille.

Champlevé is a technique in which a metal surface is engraved, following which, the recesses created by the engraving process are filled with enamel pigment and fired.

The astronaut, their flag, and the satellite are all hand-engraved, and then the cells created during the engraving process are filled with colored enamel. The same technique is applied to the satellite and both the satellite and the astronaut are liberally bedecked with Louis Vuitton logoing – exactly what you’d expect if LV produced necessities for both terrestrial and extraterrestrial travel.

The background of the lunar surface is done in grisaille enamel – this is a technique in which successive layers of white enamel are laid over a black enamel background (the name is usually used to refer to black, grey, and white stained glass but it can also be used to describe this enameling technique, or grayscale painting).

One of the distinguishing features of grisaille enamel is that thanks to the application of successive layers of the white pigment – which is porcelain powder, not powdered glass, unlike other enamel pigments – you can get layered, three-dimensional effects you can’t get with other enameling techniques. Grisaille enameling is also sometimes called Blanc de Limoges, after the French city of Limoges which historically was a major center of both enameling, and porcelain production.

The background stars in the sky are done in paillonné – this is a technique in which spangles of gold or silver are cut from metal foil, and then placed on an enamel background; a coating of clear enamel is then overlaid to hold the spangles in position. The technique is very difficult thanks to the lightness and delicacy of the spangles, and it’s one of the rarest of enameling techniques due to the technical challenges. Paillonné is also used to create the glowing surface of the Sun.

Finally, there’s enamel miniature painting, which is used to create the image of the Earth in the background.

Enamel miniature painting is of all the enameling techniques the one apt to inspire awe and respect since the challenges of the process are immediately obvious. The level of detail which a skilled enamelist can produce is almost incredible – some of the most remarkable miniature enamel paintings are tiny reproductions of fine art masterpieces, and the fidelity of reproduction can be very, very high. The fineness of the work requires great physical control, but it also requires a deep understanding of how various enamel pigments, which are produced by grinding colored glass to a fine powder before mixing it, react to firing and how they interact chemically and optically as the layers of enamel are gradually built up. There’s no such thing as an easy enameling technique, but enamel miniature painting in terms of technical difficulty is as they say, primus inter pares (first among equals).

Despite the somewhat avant-garde nature of the overall design and the contemporary nature of the interplanetary exploration motif, this is in a number of respects a very traditional watch. First of all, the design motif may be a space travel motif, but it’s a travel motif none the less and travel is what Louis Vuitton is all about (those trunks aren’t meant to just be used as coffee tables).

Secondly, from a pure watchmaking standpoint, this is an exceedingly traditional watch – from the repeater, to the the so-traditional-it’s-almost-archaic use of jaquemarts on the dial, which is something that you see very seldom at any time in the history of watchmaking, but especially nowadays.

Thirdly, this is a veritable catalog of the decorative arts in fine watchmaking, including as it does four different types of enameling (including two very rarely seen techniques, paillonné and grisaille/Blanc de Limoges) gem setting (on the repeater slide) and miniature engraving, with the dial overall requiring 300 hours of exceedingly painstaking work to complete.

At a reported price of €1 million, and given that this is a unique piece, it is obviously not a commercial undertaking in the usual sense of the word at all, but as with many other classic watchmaking arts and crafts, making this sort of thing on a regular basis is a way of ensuring continuity of art forms deeply relevant to the history of fine watchmaking overall, which might otherwise become an endangered species, or vanish entirely.

The Louis Vuitton Tambour Taiko Galactique: Case, 18k white gold, 46.7mm x 146mm, water resistance 30M; repeater slide in 18k white gold set with 6 baguette cut sapphires and 2 baguette cut topaz. Movement, caliber LFT AU1 14.02, hand wound, developed by and assembled at La Fabrique du Temps Louis Vuitton; minute repeater with cathedral gongs and seven striking jacks. Dial with 4 enameling techniques, miniature engraving, and two diamonds. Price, €1 million; unique piece.