A second generation, with a new case, a rubber strap and the X-Nihilo calibre. Insolence plays the long game.
Today, Une Folle Journée enters its second generation. The rings remain, suspended in space, but the watch around them has been rethought: a new case, a rubber strap and, for the first time in this collection, the Manufacture X-Nihilo calibre.
A TASTE FOR THE SIDESTEP
Beaumarchais was a Parisian watchmaker and the inventor of a new kind of escapement, but he was already unsettling the mechanisms of his day. In 1784, his play La Folle Journée, ou Le Mariage de Figaro upended convention with gleeful insolence, a spirit that Mozart would turn into a musical whirlwind two years later with The Marriage of Figaro. Two centuries on, another Parisian watchmaking house shares the same love of the sidestep.
At Trilobe, the hands left the stage long ago. Three off-centered rings turn counterclockwise around a fixed pointer, changing the way time is read. With Une Folle Journée, those rings took flight. Now the madness returns, bolder, more radical and unapologetically futuristic, breaking with the last of the classic design codes to embrace its audacious streak.
THE VERTIGO OF THE OBVIOUS
Beneath a spectacular sapphire dome rising 10.2 mm above the dial, Une Folle Journée builds its world in three dimensions. Three off-centered rings hang in space, held aloft by nine polished titanium columns: a miniature mechanical city, as monumental as it is mysterious. Each titanium disc pairs a hollowed, polished cornice with a concave, satin-finished inner ring in DLC (Diamond-Like Carbon), while the small seconds ring seems to float in the void on a nearly invisible sapphire crystal.
Hours, minutes and seconds turn counterclockwise around a motionless pointer. You no longer just read time. You watch it live.
MADNESS FINDS ITS FORM
Where the first generation set a bold watchmaking architecture against a classic design, Gen Two chooses unity. The new 40.3 mm case, in grade 5 titanium or 18-carat rose gold, plays satin against mirror-polished surfaces, with a fluted crown in contrasting finishes. Above it, the sapphire dome, made in Japan using the traditional flame-fusion process, then shaped and polished in Switzerland, leaves the mechanical spectacle in full view.
A new rubber strap with a double folding clasp completes the bolder silhouette. And because impertinence hides in the details, the little fish that traditionally marks water resistance has made way, beneath the strap, for a floating duck.
THE ART OF MASTERING EVERYTHING BUT THE IMAGINATION
Beaumarchais knew the inner workings of a watch before he delighted in throwing society’s out of order. At Trilobe, the same mix of mechanical rigor and creative freedom drives the Parisian Manufacture, where in-house mastery of the movement, from first sketch to final assembly, lets the Maison push its ambitions ever further.
This generation introduces the X-Nihilo calibre, Trilobe’s first Manufacture movement, which succeeds the X-Centric of the first generation. Its 267 components and 37 jewels, a balance wheel beating at 28,800 vibrations per hour and a skeletonized tungsten oscillating weight deliver 42 hours of power reserve. Fine and textured graining, hand-applied satin finishes, diamond-polished countersinks and 5N gold plating create a striking play of light and shadow. Turn the watch over, and the sapphire caseback reveals the movement floating above an open space, quietly signed by a “Paris – France” engraving.
Total freedom. Total control.
TIME TAKES ITS LIBERTIES
More sculptural, more expressive, more daring, this new generation of Une Folle Journée doesn’t reinvent what makes it unique. It owns it.
Beaumarchais had a watchmaker’s precision and a playwright’s insolence. Trilobe shares his freedom: master the rules, then feel free to rewrite them. Two eras, two ways of writing, one belief: the best creations often start with a sidestep.
Trilobe. Time moves, purpose stays.