Louis Vuitton revives its cult-classic Monterey
The fashion house has reissued its first foray into watchmaking. Will it be second time lucky?
On 9 January 2024 Allan Evensen, Louis Vuitton’s head of watch after-sales, received a WhatsApp message. It was sent from the brand’s sprawling Piscataway warehouse in the US, asking what should be done with an old, tattered cardboard box, a photo of which was attached.
Not usually consulted on the company’s trash management, Evensen nevertheless opened the image. What he saw astonished him. His thumbs danced quickly across the keypad of his phone. The message to Jean Arnault, the watch director, was concise. “Hello! Look what I found.”
Evensen was witnessing the rediscovery of one of horology’s most unlikely cult objects, buried for more than three decades in a New Jersey warehouse. The cardboard box contained 66 original Louis Vuitton Monterey watches, untouched since 1991, still in their white transport boxes with original price stickers.
If you don’t count the travel clocks that Louis Vuitton made during the 1920s, the Monterey marked LV’s debut on the watch market. It was designed by Italian architect Gae Aulenti, manufactured in collaboration with IWC and launched in 1988. That it was discontinued in the early 1990s suggests it was – how does one say this delicately? – somewhat ahead of its time.
There were two versions. The first, in gold, featured world time, moonphase and alarm, along with time and date. The indications were arranged on concentric scales with a moonphase at the centre of the dial. It looked bewildering. The second, in a ceramic case, was a little less busy, with a date indication and alarm. Both featured the crown at 12 o’clock and the same pebble-smooth design; rather than lugs, there were two openings on the caseback through which the strap was fed.
At the time I remember thinking it looked like a stopwatch and came to regard it as one of watchmaking’s dead ends. By the early 21st century, when LV launched its Tambour watches, no one talked about the Monterey any longer.
It was only a couple of years ago that the Monterey started showing up again: on the social media feed of vintage Rolex expert James Dowling and, inevitably, the wrist of American rapper Tyler, the Creator. At the beginning of this year, those who attended Louis Vuitton’s AW25 runway show in Paris would have noticed the models wearing the – so I mistakenly thought – extinct timepiece.
“I would be lying if I said that I was fascinated with the watch ever since I started at LV,” admits Jean Arnault, who took over the brand’s watch division in October 2022. However, having bought one on eBay, he became “intrigued” and started to discuss it with Matthieu Hegi, the watch division’s creative director.
“What I didn’t like about the original was that it was quite busy,” explains Hegi. “For me, what is very important is that the watch be easy to read.” His solution for the Monterey 2025 has been to maintain the signature elements of the case and the distinctive syringe hands, but remove the clutter. “I don’t want it to be a fashion statement. I want it to be, before all, a watch rooted in savoir-faire,” says Arnault. As such the Monterey 2025 is an exemplar of the company’s transformation into a vertically integrated “manufacture”. “The way we want to do it is to make it the hard way, which is in-house movement, in-house case and enamel dial,” says Arnault. “This brings something different to the table.”
The 2025 version is limited to 188 pieces cased in gold. And as it will be produced at a rate of only 10 per month, don’t expect to get one in a hurry. Even so, at the time of writing, half of the watches have already been allocated.