The Louis Vuitton Monterey Returns in Green and Black Ceramic, Like The 1988 Original

I wish more people were paying attention to the watches Louis Vuitton makes. It's easy to dismiss them as fashion watches, but their range is broad and deep, with some watches getting fascinatingly technical. But while they make some cool complications, one of my favorite watches of theirs is the Monterey. Gae Aulenti, the Italian architect, drew the original in 1988 with IWC quartz inside and a black or green ceramic case, which was kind of rare at the time. IWC had introduced its own ceramic on the Da Vinci QP two years earlier, and Louis Vuitton borrowed the know-how. LV revived the Monterey last year with a 39mm yellow gold limited edition, but now we're getting regular collection models and they're done in black and green ceramic. Very cool.

The case shrinks down to 37mm wide, matching the 1988 model, and 11mm thick, 2mm more than the quartz original to fit an automatic movement. Each one starts as a pressed block of zirconium oxide powder and pigment, is milled into the pebble shape on three axes, baked at 1,000°C, then ground and polished by hand. There are no lugs on the watch, which makes it wear much smaller. The steel crown is at 12 o'clock, wider than before, with a Clous de Paris grip. There's a sapphire crystal on top, a solid caseback out back and you get 30 meters of water resistance.

The green case gets a green dial with yellow hands, the black case a white dial with red ones. Both dials are lacquered and finished with a matte varnish, which keeps the color deep without the glare. thin blue seconds hand with a ringed counterweight appears on both versions. There are two railroad tracks, with classic serif numerals in between them.

Inside is calibre LFT MA01.02, built by La Fabrique du Temps, Louis Vuitton's own movement maker. It beats at 4Hz with a 45-hour power reserve, and the 18k rose gold rotor has V-shaped notches. The finishing includes perlage, polished bevels and sandblasted bridges, but it's all hidden behind a solid caseback. I love moves like that. The watches come on black or green calfskin straps that thread through a channel in the caseback, Aulenti's original solution.

The Louis Vuitton Monterey Ceramic is available in green or black as part of the permanent collection for €23,000. See more on the Louis Vuitton website.