Some watches announce themselves through complication. Others do it through shape. The Louis Vuitton Monterey belongs firmly to the latter camp.
First introduced in 1988 as the Louis Vuitton LV I and LV II, the watch was created in collaboration with Italian architect and designer Gae Aulenti, whose work spanned architecture, furniture and objects. Its pebble-shaped case, graphic dial and crown positioned unusually at 12 o’clock made it unlike the conventional watches of its time.
Nearly four decades later, Louis Vuitton is revisiting that design language with two new Monterey models in black and green ceramic. Following last year’s limited-edition yellow-gold revival, the latest versions join the permanent collection, giving the idiosyncratic 1980s design a more contemporary expression.
A Design Original, Recast
The appeal of the Monterey has always been its refusal to look quite like a traditional watch. That quality remains intact in the new versions, which retain the original 37mm proportions and distinctive pebble-like silhouette.
What changes is the material.
The new cases are crafted from scratch-resistant ceramic, with the glossy surface accentuating the rounded geometry of the case as it catches the light. The green model takes a tonal approach, pairing its ceramic case with a matching lacquered dial and yellow accents. The black version is more graphic, contrasting glossy black ceramic with a matte white dial, red hands and rail track, and a black calf-leather strap with red stitching.
Both retain the playful visual codes of the original while feeling considerably more at home in the contemporary watch landscape.
Where Design Meets Watchmaking
The transformation, however, is not simply cosmetic.
Ceramic is notoriously demanding to work with, and the Monterey case begins as a combination of zirconium oxide and pigments before being compressed into a solid block. It is then machined into shape and fired at more than 1,000°C. Once fired, the material can no longer be conventionally machined, leaving manual grinding and polishing to refine its final form.
The dials receive similarly hands-on treatment. Their lacquer finishes are built through multiple layers, with the green shade requiring extensive testing to achieve the desired tone. The final matte finish and graphic markings are applied by hand, adding depth to the deliberately pared-back design.
Beneath the closed caseback, the transformation continues. The original quartz movement has been replaced by Louis Vuitton’s automatic LFTMA01.02 calibre, developed and finished by La Fabrique du Temps Louis Vuitton. Its circular-grained mainplate, sandblasted bridges and rose-gold rotor carrying an LV Monogram bring a level of mechanical refinement that was absent from the original.
The result is less a reproduction than a conversation between eras. The new Monterey preserves what made Aulenti’s original so distinctive — its proportions, graphic character and slightly irreverent attitude — while using contemporary materials and in-house watchmaking to take the design somewhere new.
For a watch that began life as an unconventional design object, perhaps the most fitting evolution is not to make it more traditional, but to make it more itself.
