Mirror, Mirror: Louis Vuitton Launches The Tambour Convergence Mirror Steel

It feels as if the Tambour Convergence watches are a long established part of the Louis Vuitton watch collection, but in fact, they were only launched in January of last year – perhaps part of the reason it feels as if they’re long-standing stalwarts is because the design feels so classic. The Tambour Convergence watches tell the time with two constantly rotating disks, and the front of the watches when the collection was launched, were either mirror polished pink gold, pink gold with a guilloché pattern, or, quite spectacularly, platinum with 795 snow set diamonds.

They were all fascinating in their own way, but I thought the most interesting model was the simplest: the pink gold version with a mirror-polished dial (“dial” as I mentioned in our launch coverage being a bit of a misnomer as there is no conventional dial). The combination of Art Nouveau design influences and Art Deco minimalism is a powerful one and the watch posed an interesting conundrum for the philosophically inclined horologist, in that while the mirror dial created a wonderful visual effect, it was also readily scratched even with careful handling – the press sample I saw when the collection was launched had been handled very carefully but there were already a few minute, visible hairlines. The accumulation of scratches and other evidence of wear is something with which one has to make one’s peace in any watch with a highly polished case or bracelet, but the pink gold mirror dial Tambour Convergence really put the question of how an owner handles the gradual but inevitable accumulation of wear and tear front and center. A watch tells time but the the mirror finish of the pink gold convergence becomes, over time, an individual record of the owner’s experience of time, and it challenges the owner to interrogate their own relationship to the irreversible passage of time as well.

However, there are those who might prefer to allow the original design proposition, which is to mirror the play of light, and therefore the passage of time, in the present moment, to remain intact. For those for whom the accumulation of the evidence of wear is a bug, not a feature, Louis Vuitton has just introduced the Tambour Convergence Mirror Steel.

Case dimensions are identical to existing models: 37mm x 8mm, with sapphire crystals front and back; water resistance is 30 meters. The movement, likewise, is identical: caliber LFT MA01.01, with dragging hours and minutes, running at 28,800 vph in 26 jewels, and with a 45 minute power reserve. The case is stainless steel, but it’s not a customary case stainless steel alloy like 316L or 904L.

Louis Vuitton hasn’t specified the exact composition of the alloy, but the press release says:

“Rated at 1130 Vickers, which is only slightly less than that of high tech ceramic, the steel used in the case of the Tambour Convergence Mirror Steel has the added advantage of greater chemical purity. This specific grade of stainless steel, which is also used in medical implants, is exceptionally low in impurities … the combination of material purity and hardening treatment results in a surface that … will retain its unblemished shine for far longer than almost every other polished metal timepiece in the world.”

For context, 316L steel has a Vickers hardness of 150 to 220 HV; 904L goes up to 148 HV to 250 HV, and zirconium dioxide comes in at 1200 to 1400 HV, so whatever the alloy is that Louis Vuitton is using, it would certainly take some determination to scratch it. To get stainless steel with a Vickers hardness of 1130 is technically very difficult; there is a process called nitrocarburizing, in which stainless steel is impregnated, in an oven, with nitrogen and carbon, forming a ceramic-like surface layer. This surface layer is almost impossible to scratch; you would need a tungsten carbide or diamond tool (or something of a similar hardness) to scratch the surface.

There is of course a price difference between the stainless steel model and the rose gold model – the steel model is $25,200, while the pink gold model with a mirror dial is $37,000. Leaving aside the price, though, it is interesting how much the difference in case material changes the character of the watch, even though the basic design is the same. In pink gold, there is not only the inherent warmth of the alloy; there is also the somewhat elegaic experience of seeing it develop, over time, a surface which reflects the passage of time and the experiences of the owner. In mirror-hard stainless steel, the design takes on an almost defiant quality – a watch whose apparent vulnerability, belies its strength.