Unveiling the mystique of Trilobe’s L’Heure Exquise collection

The French watchmaker’s star release at the Watches and Wonders fair in Geneva combines astronomy, haute horlogerie and flawless design. Discover the rest of our Watches & Wonders 2024 coverage.

Since its establishment in 2013, independent watchmaker Trilobe has pursued a singular vision: to challenge and reimagine conventional ways of measuring and displaying time. Drawing on the rich tapestry of French culture with its deep artistic and architectural roots, Trilobe has consistently pushed the boundaries of traditional watchmaking.

A signature of the brand is the unusual manner in which the passing of time is indicated – traditional watch hands are dispensed with. In their place are three rotating rings – a peripheral hour ring, an inner minutes ring and innermost seconds disc, coupled with a fixed indicator, usually in the form of a trefoil – un trilobe in French. In actual fact, the orchestration of three concentric rings, each representing a different temporal dimension, is actually a marvel of engineering that demands exceptional precision in both design and execution.

Trilobe’s new L’Heure Exquise collection for this year’s Watches and Wonders is a study in minimalism and sophistication, and also marks the first time that the brand is introducing a moonphase complication into its watches. It is inspired by and named after Paul Verlaine’s poem L’Heure Exquise, which describes how silver moonlight beautifully glows at nightfall. Aesthetically, L’Heure Exquise adopts many elements from the brand’s debut collection, Les Matinaux, which incidentally honours a collection of poems by René Char.

Against the background of L’Heure Exquise’s multi-layered, beautifully sand-blasted dials in blue and sand, Trilobe takes this eccentric complication one step further with a poetic waltz of moons. Within platinum and rose gold cases measuring either 38.5mm or 40.5mm tick Trilobe’s proprietary X-Centric calibre featuring 48-hour power reserve and dark bridges treated with black gold that can be seen thorough the transparent display back. Driving the laser-textured brass moons in this watch is a gear wheel with 59 cogs that evoke the orbit of the Moon around the Earth, completing a full cycle of 29.5 days. If desired, each of these models can be transformed into a personalised “Secret” edition featuring a Super-LumiNova representation of the starry sky as actually seen over a given location on a certain date at a specific time – a great way to honour a memorable event or precious moment.

In crafting the L’Heure Exquise collection, Trilobe has not merely introduced a series of timepieces; it has issued an invitation to reimagine our relationship with time. Through a blend of meticulous craftsmanship, innovative design, and the enigmatic allure of its “secret” models, the collection