Le Régulateur Louis Erard x atelier oï
Le Régulateur Louis Erard x atelier oï is the latest collaborative effort from the Jura-based watch firm. In this instance, it has joined forces with atelier oï, a Swiss-based design specialist with a vast portfolio of clients. Angus Davies looks at the rationale for embracing such collaborations and how they benefit Louis Erard’s clients.
In my former life, I was a co-owner of a chemical company supplying the food industry. I recall that one of our clients, a large biscuit factory, arranged for several members of its management team to visit a car factory. The purpose of the visit was to observe practices which could be adapted to biscuit manufacturing. This process led to some interesting discoveries and certainly proved a useful catalyst for change.
My reason for mentioning this is that when a company restricts its view, seeking inspiration from its rivals alone, innovation and progress can sometimes be stifled. Recently, Manuel Emch, the current manager of Louis Erard, chose to look beyond the accepted norms of the watch industry and engage with a different sector from his own. Indeed, Emch looked to his past when he was an intern working at atelier oï, a specialist design practice.
Image – © atelier oï
While atelier oï operates in a different domain to Louis Erard, it clearly appreciates the importance of design and functionality.
This interesting source of inspiration has led to a fascinating collaboration, culminating in the release of Le Régulateur Louis Erard x atelier oï. The dial of this watch is adorned with straight lines, some emanating from the fulcrum of the hour hand and others from the centre of the small seconds display. The regulator minutes hand upholds convention, dominating the dialscape. The numerous grooves seem to swirl around the dial while simultaneously appearing arrow-straight.
I have not yet worn Le Régulateur Louis Erard x atelier oï and feel unable to comment on its day-to-day practicality, however, it is clear that this composition brims with style and proffers a unique appearance.
Over the last few years, Louis Erard has demonstrated that by collaborating with others it is able to produce a watch that is greater than the sum of its parts. Moreover, it has shown that despite democratising watch ownership with keen pricing, it is unwilling to accept lazy design. Indeed, all of the Maison’s creations are infused with a high quotient of style, often achieved with a little help from its friends, including Eric Giroud, Vianney Halter and Alain Silberstein.
In recent times, Louis Erard seems to have had the Midas touch. It frequently favours producing limited editions of just 178 pieces and it has repeatedly experienced demand outstripping supply. In fact, some models are now attracting ‘overs’ on the pre-owned market.
Beyond the prepossessing looks of its models, Louis Erard is been able to deliver an incredibly competitive quality-price ratio. I have spoken to Manuel Emch in the past and discovered a few of the brand’s strategies for achieving its ultra-keen pricing.
Firstly, the firm works on smaller margins than many of its rivals. Secondly, it doesn’t make vast numbers of watches that will spend long periods of time sitting on retailers’ shelves. On the contrary, Louis Erard cleverly manages the ratio between supply and demand. Moreover, the company often uses the same cases and Sellita calibres for several different models, enjoying useful economies of scale.
However, the most notable aspect that sets Louis Erard apart from its rivals, is that it is willing to collaborate with others. It accepts it doesn’t have all the answers, but it has shown it’s not afraid to draw upon the talents and expertise of firms that operate outside of horology’s sphere of reference.
The brand’s press release
Louis Erard marks a new stage in the accessible creation watch, with a fresh look at all the crafts that make up watchmaking. For this new collaboration, Louis Erard turns to architecture and design with atelier oï, a regional company that has been shining internationally for 30 years, and a radiant watch, too.
How to materialise space and time? How to materialise the contemporary spirit of the watch when connected technology has disconnected watchmaking from its primary necessity: telling the time?
Louis Erard invited atelier oï to look into the question and the answer is a new original dial, the third part of the series of collaborations already co-signed by Alain Silberstein and Vianney Halter. Once more based on the emblematic model of the Maison: the regulator. Once again with the desire to bring together key players in traditional watchmaking culture. And again with the desire to bring together key players in Swiss know-how: atelier oï and Louis Erard are both regional companies of international stature.
Breaking new ground, the collaboration leaves the strict field of watchmaking, since atelier oï works in the fields of architecture and design. The invitation did not come about by accident, however. The workshop, based in La Neuveville, a satellite town of Neuchâtel, has been close to the watchmaking industry since its creation precisely thirty years ago and the watchmaking world has played a major part in the development of the company. Going back as far as the 1990s, there has also been a warm relationship between atelier oï and Louis Erard, as illustrated by the current manager Manuel Emch, who began his career with an internship at atelier oï and who has collaborated with it ever since.
In three decades, atelier oï has become a brand in itself, reputed around the world, rewarded with more than thirty distinctions which illustrate its uniqueness. Moreover, the name, oï, is borrowed from the Russian Troika, a word that symbolises the energy generated by a trio, in this case, Aurel Aebi, Armand Louis and Patrick Reymond, the three co-founders.
Talents, an anniversary, connections, Le Régulateur Louis Erard, the planets were therefore aligned for this collaboration to emerge.
The objective, for Louis Erard, is once again to break down barriers in the world and make accessible what is often reserved for specialist clientele. With this added challenge of plunging without a net into contemporary creation, with all that entails of references, reflections, diversions and shocks.
atelier oï proceeded in a basic way: “To radiate from the centre outwards.” Taking care to reduce the technical vocabulary as much as possible, reminiscent of the shape of a sundial. The result is a surface engraved with asymmetrical rays, the light of which reveals reflections and contrasts – echoing the passion of the members of atelier oï for the material and the play of light. The art of engraving being expressed here in its essence: drawn lines. These lines create a space, to which the hands add the dimension of time.
Le Régulateur has naturally imposed its own rhythm: the hands (hour, minute, second) become centres from which rays emerge, generating visual kinetics that each movement of the wrist animates, giving the two-dimensional dial the depth of a radiant architecture. A pure work of art, which nothing can break, not even the Louis Erard logo.
Reading the time comes out somewhat dematerialised – you have to mentally reconstruct the puzzle of hour angles – but all the links are not broken: the minute-circle still appears around the edge of the dial, with a more pronounced line every five minutes and exactly sixty segments. A nod from atelier oï to the smartphone generation: “Today, the object watch has another meaning.”
Le Régulateur Louis Erard x atelier oï. Retail price CHF 3,500. Limited edition of 178 pieces — symbol number which means that together we are always stronger. Other collaborations to follow.
About Atelier oï
Derived from the Russian word “troika”, a team of three, atelier oï was founded in 1991 in La Neuveville, Switzerland, by Aurel Aebi, Armand Louis and Patrick Reymond. With a team spirit and an intimate relationship with the material, atelier oï has been working for 30 years to dissolve barriers between genres and promote transdisciplinary creativity.
Born from an intuitive and emotional affinity between the three founders, atelier oï works in the fields of architecture, interior architecture, product design and scenography, with a collaboration between disciplines, creating holistic solutions from object to space. The co-founders have a strong interest in nature and natural materials, and their expertise in transforming these allows them to carry out both emotional and artisanal projects.
The three founders are architects, designers and boat builders, all members of the Federation of Swiss Architects FAS and headed the Swiss Design Awards as President of the Federal Design Commission between 2008 and 2016. Trained at the school of architecture funded by Alberto Sartoris in Switzerland, the founders also received honorary doctorates from this institution.
atelier oï encourages experimentation and cultural exchange, through their work with clients and their own initiatives, and as visiting professors in a number of leading institutions, including ETH Zurich, ECAL Renens, the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts and the Kuwasawa Design School in Tokyo.
The combination of local roots and international know-how has enabled atelier oï to design objects for a wide variety of national and international clients, including Artemide, B&B Italia, Bulgari, Foscarini, Louis Vuitton, Nespresso, Pringle of Scotland, Rimowa, USM and WonderGlass. atelier oï has also organised monographic exhibitions of its work in Zurich, São Paulo and Tokyo. atelier oï is also working on a humanitarian project for Smiling Gecko in Cambodia.
atelier oï’s projects have been recognised globally and have won some of the most prestigious awards including multiple IF Design Awards, Europan 3 Award, European Museum of the Year Award, Red Dot Award and the product of the year award from Architectural Record.
About Louis Erard
Based in the Jura mountains, the birthplace of watchmaking, Louis Erard embodies the values of Swiss mechanics, the tradition that keeps its promises. Combining luxury, timelessness and elegance, this independent brand is renowned for its mechanical watches and, in particular, its iconic regulators. A collection on which the brand, founded by Mr Louis Erard in 1929, built its reputation.
Today, continuing the work of its founder and honouring the watchmaking tradition, the Maison is reinterpreting the codes in a contemporary language, revisiting its artistic crafts and opening up its field of expression through collaborations and exchanges of know-how. Louis Erard continues to set itself apart from mass-market brands. Inspired by high-end watchmaking, the brand draws on its values to enhance its mechanical timepieces.
Further reading