Louis Erard is, in my opinion, a highly underrated watch brand. They produce some of the most distinct and interesting watches in terms of style, design and execution and yet there’s never much buzz around them, at least that makes its way back to me. Just look at the insanity of the Excellence Guilloché Main, it’s utterly mesmerising. Their latest release, the Le Régulateur Gravé Noir, is captivating for a different reason: its purity and gravitas.
Structurally it’s a very classy dress watch with a 39mm diameter case produced in stainless steel. White gold would be a more traditional dress watch material but steel helps keep the watch in a lower price bracket and is also more durable. It has a sleek curve around the bezel and a lovely, polished surface along the top of the lugs.
However, what really stands out about this watch is the dial. It has a grained black base with rose-gilt indexes, numerals and scales arranged in the classic regulator format. There’s a subdial at 12 o’clock for the hours, a central hand for the minutes and a subdial at 6 o’clock for the seconds. Regulator clocks and watches were originally designed to make it easy to set other timepieces from them by isolating the individual timekeeping elements.
The Le Régulateur Gravé Noir emphasises that isolation further by presenting the display in a sector style, where the minute scale is split into sections by its indexes and the subdials have crosshair-like patterns on them. This is the first time Louis Erard have produced a sector display regulator and I really like the look of it. There’s a really strong Art Deco aesthetic to it that elevates the piece with a cool geometric precision.
Beneath the display is the Sellita calibre SW266-1, Sellita’s automatic movement with regulator display. It’s almost a surprise to find a Sellita inside because the style of the watch makes you expect something much more exclusive and expensive. Yet the watch itself is priced only at CHF 2,900 (approx. £2,580). I could easily see a watch like this having a price tag 10x that from a prestige brand.
Price and Specs:
More details at Louis Erard.
