SpotlightTrilobe’s First Complication With The Limited-Edition L’Heure Exquise Timepieces
Trilobe’s inaugural series, Les Matinaux, had already caused a stir with its poetic display of time. With the L’Heure Exquise, Trilobe add three new fantastic additions to the collection, equipped with a moon phase display and a matt-finish dial
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Everything Trilobe create comes with a touch of poetry and an eccentric quality about it. The brand was established in 2018 and they hit the ground running with the inaugural Les Matinaux collection, which brought to the forefront a whole new way of telling the time, with no hands and three concentric rings on the dial. Six years later, the collection receives an update with the L’Heure Exquise timepiece, featuring the most poetic complication out there: the moon phase.
Poetry In Motion: The Brand-New Limited-Edition L’Heure Exquise
The three new timepieces are available in titanium or rose gold cases, with the former being 38.5mm wide and the latter at 40.5mm. Offering a water resistance of 50m, the case of each version has a slim profile: a mere 20mm lug width and 9.2mm thickness. A combination of mirror-polished and satin-brushed surfaces has been used for the finishing on the case surfaces.
With the sand-blasted dial in a ‘dune’ or blue hue, it visibly features a lot of elements taken directly from the Les Matinaux collection, but a few details make the L’Heure Exquise the watch it is. In a nutshell, that’s what defines the watch. It builds on the poetic brilliance of the inaugural collection while adding its own flair.
Of course, the way it tells the time is similar, with a peripheral hour ring and a central minute ring, both rotating counter-clockwise. However, the view of the movement is now replaced with the gorgeous moon phase display, and the running seconds ring is missing as well. The ‘starry sapphire crystal atop the moon phase completes one rotation every 60 seconds, serving as the running seconds. Unlike the original collection, which featured the Trilobe logos eccentrically and almost randomly placed on the dial, a single tri-folium now indicates the hours and minutes at the 12 o’clock position.
There’s also a slight tilt in the numerals on the dial—a detail that, according to the brand, accentuates the movement of the discs and highlights the passage of time.
The moon phase completes a cycle in 29.5 days, and it’s co-axially linked to the seconds wheel, which essentially is the starry sapphire crystal we spoke of.
The Complete Starry Night On Your Wrist: L’Heure Exquise ‘Secret’
Within Trilobe’s Les Matinaux and Nuit Fantastique collections is a brilliantly customisable watch, the ‘Secret’ edition. These watches have a special dial option that shows the starry night sky as seen on a certain date and from a specified location. As the maison‘s first ever complication is a moon phase, it was only fitting that the L’Heure Exquise featured a ‘Secret’ edition timepiece as well. According to Trilobe, this is a ‘subtle way to free time, from a happy or promising moment, and freeze it for eternity’.
After being activated by a UV light, the drawn stars come to life to illuminate the dial. Each version of the L’Heuere Exquise is powered by the X-Centric calibre—a movement that pioneered Trilobe’s unconventional way of telling the time. It operates at a frequency of 28,800vph, with a power reserve of 48 hours, while a tungsten-made micro-rotor delivers power to the barrel.
Everything about these watches stays true to the brand’s dedication to rewriting the way time is told and their poetic approach towards watchmaking. The Les Matinaux collection was named after René Char’s 1950 poem collection, and the L’Heuere Exquise is named after a poem by 19th-century poet Paul Verlaine. The poetic approach to telling the time is further accentuated by linking time with its most ancient element: the sky. Though the brand is quite young (established only in 2018), it seems as though they hardly set a foot wrong.
