Two years of back-and-forth discussions, multiple architectural projects together and a longstanding creative relationship with Louis Vuitton — that's what it took for Frank Gehry to finally try his hand at watchmaking, after over half a century of designing some of the world's greatest examples of contemporary architecture, ranging from art museums to towers, residential buildings and more. 

For LV, he's tried his hand at various handbags, though this time, however, his work is a bit smaller in size at about 48.3mm across — here's a look at the new Tambour Moon Flying Tourbillon Poinçon de Genève Sapphire Frank Gehry.

Following the continually growing trend of transparency in watchmaking, the new Tambour takes on a flying tourbillion format cased in sapphire. The case, along with the dial, crown, lugs and hands were all made by Louis Vuitton's La Fabrique du Temps, and cut from a single 200-kilo block of sapphire. Thin as a sheet of paper, the dial is a masterwork in materials science and was sculpted by hand from a crumpled-photograph relief of the 2022 Tambour Moon Saphir  — designed by Gehry to evoke the ideas of 'sea, fish, boats, the nautical world', as he put it. "I like to express movement, inject this energy and dynamic into static materials.

While the dial took 250 man-hours to produce, great effort was taken to shape and evoke certain textures on various parts of the watch. Diamond powder and diamond drills, for instance, were used by the Maison's artisans to apply matt textures at certain areas — a supremely delicate operation that had to be done piecemeal, owing to heat and vibration affecting the sapphire. Even mounting the dial wasn't an option due to its extreme thinness — each artisan had to hold the dial by hand and carefully work on various angles under binocular microscopes (we're not sure if LV hires neurosurgeons to work on watches, but this degree of overkill certainly brings to mind various Grey's Anatomy episodes.)

This Tambour Moon – the first watch with a sapphire dial and case to bear the Poinçon de Genève seal – is powered by the manufacture flying tourbillon LFT MM05.01 movement that was entirely created, developed and assembled by the master watchmakers at La Fabrique du Temps Louis Vuitton in Geneva. Featureing 80 horus of power, the hand-wound movement also shows off a monogram flower within the tourbillion's structure — which completes a rotation once per minute. The caseback is adorned with Gehry's famous signature — underlining what simply is one of the most extreme watchmaking feats accomplished in recent years. If this is what Gehry can pull off with his first watch collab, we can't wait to see what he does if LV come knocking again. 

Manufactured in an exclusive batch of only five units, the Tambour Moon Flying Tourbillon Poinçon De Genève Sapphire Frank Gehry is priced at a recommended retail value of $935,000 USD by the manufacturer.