Louis Erard adds two new pieces to its Noirmont Métiers d’Art collection — and they may be the most technically considered watches the Swiss independent has yet produced.
Three years is a long time to develop a dial. For most watches, the dial is a finishing decision — a surface chosen late, dressed in applied indices and sent to market. For Louis Erard’s new Le Régulateur Esprit Flinqué, it was the point of departure.
Born From Innovation
The brand’s CEO Manuel Emch spent the better part of three years working with New York platform Worn & Wound to realise what he describes as “the most ambitious idea rather than the simple one.” The result is now entering the Noirmont Métiers d’Art collection in two editions — and it announces itself with the kind of quiet confidence that tends to hold up.
The watch is a regulator — a display format that separates the time into its components rather than stacking them on a single set of hands. Hours sit isolated at 12 o’clock, minutes dominate the centre, seconds occupy a counter at 6. It is a legible, hierarchical layout with a long history in precision timekeeping, and one Louis Erard has made its own.
What Esprit Flinqué adds to that familiar architecture is a technique drawn from decorative arts: guillochage flinqué, in which a fine fluted sunray pattern is impressed into the dial surface, then finished with translucent lacquer. The effect is a dial that does not simply catch light — it moves through it, the reflections shifting and deepening with every turn of the wrist.
Time for Firsts
The more significant technical development is a first for the brand: for the first time at Louis Erard, the hours and seconds appear not on conventional sub-dials but on skeletonized rotating discs. The open-worked construction creates an impression of real lightness — the numerals appearing to hover above the dial plane — while demanding precise engineering to ensure smooth rotation and stable legibility within the regulator layout. It is the kind of detail that does not shout, but that rewards the attention it receives.
Both editions are housed in a polished 39 mm stainless-steel case, 12.82 mm deep with a lug-to-lug of 45.9 mm. The movement is a Sellita SW266-1 automatic — 28,800 vph, 31 jewels, a minimum 38-hour power reserve — decorated with a skeletonized oscillating weight bearing the Louis Erard symbol in black lacquer. A domed sapphire crystal sits above; a transparent caseback reveals the movement beneath.
The Two Editions
Blue
Ref. 85248AA65.BVA158 · 99 pieces
Developed in close collaboration with Worn & Wound, the blue edition pairs a light blue dial base and polished blue lacquer minute counter with a beige grained calf-leather strap. The contrast is warm and considered. The caseback is engraved “Louis Erard × Worn & Wound — Limited Edition 1 of 99”. First shown in December 2025, it now enters the Métiers d’Art collection officially.
Grey
Ref. 85248AA62.BVA153 · 99 pieces
A pure Louis Erard interpretation. The light grey dial base and polished anthracite lacquer minute counter are carried through to a matching grey calf-leather strap, creating a tonal, monochromatic presence that feels thoroughly of the moment. An architectural watch for those who prefer their horology to speak quietly.
Both are limited to 99 pieces. That is not a number chosen for marketing effect — it reflects the genuine constraints of dial production at this level of finish, and it places both editions within reach of a collector who moves deliberately rather than impulsively.
Esprit Flinqué extends the Noirmont Métiers d’Art collection — a body of work that has, over recent years, engaged seriously with hand engraving, grand feu enamel, and fil d’or — into new visual territory. The language here is one of light, pattern, and movement rather than pictorial craft, and it opens a direction the brand has signalled it intends to continue. For collectors building a considered position in independent Swiss watchmaking below the first tier of price, these two watches make a compelling case.
