Louis Erard Collaborates with seconde/seconde/ on a New Error Filled Regulator

It’s rare, but every so often a watch brand is successful in transforming the way they’re perceived by the larger community. Now, brands attempt to do this all the time – shifting gears is a favorite pastime of watch brands both large and small at a time when the industry is growing so quickly. But it’s hard to pull off in a way that feels authentic and resonant with customers. Most of the time, that first impression just sticks. So it’s been incredibly interesting to see Louis Erard, a brand that has been around since 1929, pivot to specializing in something even more niche than their quite old fashioned regulator layout watches. In a relatively short span of time, Louis Erard has become synonymous with the collaboration watch. Just in the last year, we’ve seen them release limited editions with Vianney Halter, Alain Silberstein, and atelier oï. They’ve also unveiled a handful of craft and art themed watches fully on their own steam, but with a similar specificity in design. What was once a somewhat strange, almost sleepy brand for enthusiasts who were truly in-the-know has come alive with the help of some high profile collaborators and genuinely interesting designs. Now, with seconde/seconde/, they’re at it again, and the result is every bit as unique as their previous efforts. 

seconde/seconde/ is a French studio that has grown a following on Instagram by selling vintage watches with creatively swapped hands. Seeing these creations on Instagram is the best way to get a sense of what they’re doing – it’s a visual medium, after all. Take the Gübelin signed Patek Philippe with a goblin inspired second hand, for instance. Or the Air King with a cloud replacing the center mounted sweep seconds hand. They mix modern with vintage, have a penchant for clever wordplay, and have enough respect for the watches themselves to ship the original hands along with every piece that has been newly repurposed. They collaborated with H. Moser earlier this year on one of their concept dials, with an eraser playing the part of the hour hand (because the dial’s hour and minute markers have been erased). On the nose? Sure. seconde/seconde/ creations succeed or fail based largely on your own individual sense of humor, and whether you think a sense of humor should be applied to watches at all. 

The loose concept behind the Le Régulateur Louis Erard x seconde/seconde/ (the official, quite French, and somewhat cumbersome name of the new watch) is to make the internet itself the watch’s centerpiece. Louis Erard refers to this as a taboo in the watch community, and if you’ve been around Swiss watch brands long enough, you probably remember a time when many simply had no presence online at all, let alone on social media platforms, where so much of the watch culture sits at the moment. Even now, many large brands have websites that, to put it kindly, could use an update. It’s not controversial to say that some traditional segments of the watch world have embraced the internet with a grimace, rather than open arms. 

The ever present “404 Error” is the theme of this watch’s dial, with the center mounted minute hand rendered as a blue bar with “404” at its counterweight. When the minute hand lands at the 45 mark, it lines up with another blue bar that reads “error.” At every other time, though, the brand’s name is visible in such a way that it reads “Louis Error,” a sign of some rare self-effacing humor on the part of a Swiss watch brand.

Compared to the other recent Louis Erard collaborations, this is a fairly minimal affair, and that long minute hand is literally and figuratively at the center of this watch’s design and appeal. The hour and second registers are essentially just the standard issue Louis Erard, making it feel as if the error message appeared on a run of the mill Régulateur. Anyway, we all know what they say about explaining the joke, so we’ll let it stand on its own and your reactions can be fully hashed out in the comments. 

Like most of the other regulators made by Louis Erard, this one measures 42mm in diameter, just shy of 50mm from lug to lug, and is 12.25mm thick. The movement is Sellita’s SW266-1 caliber, and the watch is mounted to a chocolate toned nubuck leather strap. The Le Régulateur Louis Erard x seconde/seconde/ is limited to 178 pieces, and has a retail price set at CHF 2,404 (even the retail price gets in on the joke). 

Whether or not this watch is your cup of tea (and I’ll be honest here and admit that wearing a watch like this that exists as a sort of visual pun would be a hard sell for me personally), there’s no denying that what Louis Erard is doing with these collaborations continues to be interesting and, at times, challenging in a way that few watch brands really try to be. Like the Silberstein collaboration before it, this is truly more an example of wearable art than any kind of traditional watch, and it’s exciting that there’s a brand that seems committed to making watches like these at relatively affordable price points. More information can be found at the Louis Erard website, and seconde/seconde/ can be found here.