[imagesource: Louis Vuitton]

Feeling goth? Feeling fancy? Wanna make the skill of time management on your CV genuinely impressive?

Louis Vuitton has just the watch for you.

And we’re not talking rip-off of Louis Vuitton products from South African politicians, either, because this watch is the real deal.

Introducing Louis Vuitton’s most excessive flagship watch for 2021, and it’s a mouthful – the Tambour Carpe Diem Automaton Minute Repeater.

Challenge: see how many seconds that takes you to repeat three times over.

At least watching the seconds go by while you say that will be easy compared to telling the time if you actually had the watch.

Image: SJX

Here’s a description by SJX:

The Carpe Diem is a minute repeater with a quadruple jacquemart – it incorporates four automata – along with a jumping hour and retrograde minutes display.

Jeez, who knew that telling time could be so wordy?

SJX breaks it down:

The head of the snake pivots to reveal the hours in the skull’s forehead, and its tail simultaneously swings to point to the minutes on a retrograde scale at eight o’clock.

And a pivoted lattice slides into view in the left eye of the skull, transforming the emblem within from one component of the Louis Vuitton monogram into another: turning a rounded, four-petaled flower into a four-pointed star. And at the same time, the jaw of the skull lowers to reveal “Carpe Diem” between the two rows of enamelled teeth.

You don’t just get a fancy watch folks, you also get a riddle.

At the steep price of $475 000 (around R7 million) you better be getting more than that, though.

It is very aesthetic at least, with the engraving done by Dick Steenman of Art&D in Geneva, and the enamelling done by Anita Porchet, who is perhaps the most famous enameller in watchmaking.

There’s also a perfectly cut diamond, some ruby, rose gold, leather, and 426 components.

Image: SJX

The bridges at the back of the watch have been cleverly reshaped to form a skull, with the eyes revealing jewel bearings and the mouth of the skull the balance wheel.

The inner workings are just as complicated and intricate, but I won’t get into it here.

If you want to know more about that, visit SJX.

[source:sjx]