In the autumn of 2025 Louis Vuitton brought back its first wristwatch. The Louis Vuitton Montre is a limited edition that rebuilds the 1988 LV I and LV II with modern engineering: 188 pieces worldwide, priced at 8,503,000 yen including tax in Japan. A watch that had been quietly reappraised by collectors returned officially after thirty-seven years.

1988: A Watch Shaped by an Architect

Louis Vuitton put its first wristwatch on the market in 1988. The design went to Gae Aulenti, the Italian architect who led the conversion of the old Gare d'Orsay in Paris into a museum.

What she produced broke with watchmaking convention: a pebble-shaped case, all curve and no lugs, with the crown at twelve o'clock in a nod to pocket watches. The dial carried a track-like scale suggesting railway rails, a fitting emblem for a house built on travel.

The LV I measured 40mm in yellow or white gold and ran a quartz movement with world time, GMT, moonphase and date. The LV II came in a 37mm ceramic case, advanced material for the period, with a pointer date and an alarm. They were first called Montre 1 and Montre 2, and from montre, the French word for watch, came the nickname that stuck.

It was not a commercial triumph. Production delays and a high price got in the way, and the design was arguably too far ahead of its moment. The shape has aged well, though, and a younger generation of collectors has taken to it. An original appeared on the maison's autumn/winter 2025 women's runway.

Inside the Reissue

The new Louis Vuitton Montre Automatic Yellow Gold, reference W0YG11, keeps the original design codes and modernizes everything underneath.

The case is 18-karat yellow gold, 39mm across and 12.2mm thick, water resistant to 50 meters. The pebble form is hand-polished, and the crown carries a Clous de Paris pattern. The dial is white grand feu enamel, built up in layers on an 18-karat white gold plate and fired repeatedly, a traditional process that takes roughly twenty hours to complete. Red hour and minute hands, a blued steel seconds hand and twin red and blue scales give the white face its structure.

The biggest change is the engine. In place of the original quartz sits the in-house automatic caliber LFT MA01.02: 26 jewels, 28,800 vibrations per hour, about 45 hours of power reserve. The rotor is 18-karat rose gold, cut with a V that echoes the monogram. The caseback is engraved "1 of 188," a number drawn from the 1988 debut, which also sets the size of the edition.

Why a Reissue, Not a New Brand

The Montre is not a new watch brand. It is one limited model. The industry is awash in vintage revivals, and this one sits oddly among them: the original was less an acknowledged classic than a strange object that captured its moment.

Rather than mass-revive it, Louis Vuitton capped the run at 188. The restraint reads as respect for a watch whose following was always a cult one.

The In-House Engine at La Fabrique du Temps

The reissue was built at La Fabrique du Temps Louis Vuitton, the maison's watch atelier in Geneva. Louis Vuitton acquired it in 2011 and has operated from the current Geneva workshop since 2014, developing and producing complications including tourbillons and minute repeaters.

The watch division has been shifting for years from bought-in movements toward its own. Under Jean Arnault, a member of the founding family with an engineering background, that work has centered on the Tambour, launched in 2002 and named for the French word for drum, and the Escale. The Montre reissue only became possible on the back of it.

What do you make of serious watchmaking from a fashion house? And of reviving an old design rather than drawing a new one? We would like to hear it.

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