Louis Erard’s regulator has, over the past few years, become the brand’s most active platform – a shared canvas for collaborations with independent watchmakers including Alain Silberstein, Vianney Halter, and Konstantin Chaykin, and a showcase for métiers d’art work spanning wood marquetry, grand feu enamel, fil d’or, and hand engraving. The integrated-bracelet 2340 marked a step into more self-contained territory – a new case, new bracelet, and a movement first for the brand, all developed in-house. The new Le Régulateur Esprit Flinqué falls into the second stream: it joins the Noirmont Métiers d’Art collection as a new craft expression, with the blue version reintroducing the Louis Erard x Worn & Wound collaboration from late 2025 alongside a fresh grey variant developed by Louis Erard alone.
It lands in an unusual register – not quite classical regulator, not quite modern – the traditional architecture reworked through a layered construction that pushes it into more contemporary territory. Fluted sunray lines radiate across the surface, catching light differently as the wrist moves and giving the dial a depth flat finishing can’t match. The central minute display, marked by the brand’s familiar fir-tree hand, sits within a lighter framed cartouche; above and below, the open-worked discs for hours and seconds mark the first skeletonised elements ever to appear on a Louis Erard watch, requiring a reworked regulator architecture to keep both rotating smoothly without compromising legibility.
Two variants are offered: a deep blue dial paired with beige calf, and a more architectural grey on matching grey calf. Both use the same fluted treatment, but the colour shifts how the pattern reads – the blue holds saturation, the grey leans cooler and more graphic.
The case is polished steel throughout, 39mm across with a 12.82mm thickness and 45.9mm lug-to-lug – well inside the proportions most regulator buyers are after. A three-part construction with a domed sapphire crystal, anti-reflective on both sides, a sapphire caseback and 50m water resistance. Inside sits the Sellita SW266-1 in élaboré grade – automatic, 31 jewels, 4Hz, 38-hour power reserve, topped with a personalised openworked rotor carrying a black-lacquered LE monogram. Production runs to 99 pieces per dial, 198 in total, priced at CHF 3,900 excluding tax. Louis Erard will be exhibiting at Hands-On Horology 2026 – worth a look if the Esprit Flinqué hasn’t sold through by then, alongside the rest of the current range and what’s rumoured to be a special edition for the show.
Price and Specs:
More details at Louis Erard.
