«OUR FOREFATHERS HAVE MARKED THEIR TIMES, WE WILL INVENT OURS…»
Contemporary watch making is in constant evolution. Over the last few years, a new generation of watch makers has been changing the paradigm of the Luxury watch industry, breaking established rules and going beyond traditional boundaries. Their timepieces are presenting wildly breathtaking esthetics, with modern and sophisticated approaches to telling the time. Lionel Ladoire stands as part of this new generation of watch makers, profoundly rooted in the 21st century.
Conceptual watch maker, Ladoire imagines and develops an amazing approach to telling the time, poles apart from the conservative codes of traditional watch making. Richard Piras, benefitting from 15 years of experience in technology financing and innovation management, with an engineering background, organizes the marketing and industrial development of the Company. New player since 2007 in the Luxury industry, Ladoire is positioned on the market of high-end watch making, in the exclusive segment of avant-garde Swiss timepieces with complications. With a vision reaching the highest ambitions: to create a new dynamic in the watch industry, the Haute Couture Watch dynamic.
LADOIRE OR THE ANTICONFORMISM WATCH MAKING
The watch making revolution that the young Geneva-based brand has started is not a revolt. Convinced of his innovating ideas and renowned partners in the sector of watch engineering, Ladoire has the fierce willpower to faithfully integrate the ancestral and precious watch making art in the 21st century, an era of unrestrained technological progress. For Lionel Ladoire, this revolution breaks with the realization of a mechanical movement endowed with processes yet unexplored by the watch making industry. Ladoire opts for the temporal deconstruction of the watch, freeing himself from all constraints linked with a classical watch making heritage and allowing him to create his own and unseen universe.
Emblematic of this visionary ambition, ROLLER GUARDIAN TIME (RGT) is the first timepiece created by Ladoire. A piece of enigmatic beauty that resembles no other existing timepiece. Some call this creation the «UFO» of watch making, coming from another world. Others speak about a postmodern timepiece with a completely shifted design. Iconoclastic machine or futuristic vision? Even if opinions differ, all experts in watchmaking agree on one point : The RGT from LADOIRE, endowed with its own movement, leaves no one indifferent and sets the tone for watch making to come.
The difference: a distinctive creativity with particular attention to displaying time in a radically different way and to capturing time with one of the most complicated movements produced recently. The fruit of the work of an exceptional team of talented independent technicians active in the sector of high-end watch making. A complex display of time, unusual dimensions, sharp design. Lionel Ladoire is literally sweeping aside the codes of traditional watch making, and he is arousing a new emotion in watch making, likened to the creation of Haute Couture.
« HELVET MECHANIC »
100% helvet certified
The young watch maker, guided by his passion, his obsession for detail and his perfectionism, sought the best from the experts in mechanic timekeeping. A radically new vision of high-end watch making: for Lionel Ladoire, the creation of a timepiece is primarily the work of a team, of men and women, without whom his project could never have seen daylight.
Henceforth the human aspect becomes the main fuel for success of the LADOIRE brand and its timepiece, the Roller Guardian Time (RGT). A philosophy, which the creator has chosen to present to the public. Illustrating the sophistication and avant-garde of the brand, an internet site www.ladoire.ch pays tribute to all partners involved with the birth of the RGT.
In a break-down view of the mechanical movement, one can discover the historical path of the timepiece’s creation, thanks to mentions of the suppliers’ names and locations. A special section called « Credits » is dedicated to thanking collaborators of this project. A token to this passionate watch making community, which is working hard behind the scenes for prestigious watch brands.
LIONEL LADOIRE
PASSIONATE CONCEPTUAL WATCH MAKER
Lionel Ladoire is at the heart of the eponymous brand. Within his «Helvet Manufacture», established on the site of the Acacias (GE), the creator designs and develops distinguished mechanical timepieces immersed in haute-horlogerie. The powerful identity of his creations is animated by ideas increasingly reckless in terms of design and technology. Lionel Ladoire draws his inspiration from safe values of contemporary culture such as: Andy Warhol, Philippe Stark, Jean-Paul Gaultier, Christian Lacroix, to name only a few, and also from reference characters, in terms of audacity and prestige, of the rock/underground universe.
Far more than just mechanical timepieces, Ladoire creations will turn the rules of watch making upside down, while respecting the most rigorous criteria of the traditional helvetic craftsman’s knowhow.
Talented jeweler, conceptual watch maker, passionate surfer and rock drummer, Lionel Ladoire has a style worlds apart from the classism of watch making and enjoys surfing on the wave of the young watch-makers of the 21st century.
From a family of four generations of jewelers, it is by real passion and not obligation that Lionel started to specialize in this sector. Interested in micromechanics since his childhood, after 20 years of experience in fine jewelry the young talent naturally turns to watch-making, shaping it to his image and following breakthrough industrial criteria and exclusive esthetics.
A revolution in high-end watch making.
ROLLER GUARDIAN TIME (RGT)
SHIFTED WATCH MAKING
Through his first creation, Lionel Ladoire has already marked his difference. To conceive the RGT, its creator decided to surround himself with the best partners. This is not an unusual fact in the luxury industry. However Lionel Ladoire decided to go further. True to his rebellious and forerunner spirit, the young talent did not hesitate to personally appoint the whole of the companies, mostly independent, which all accepted to collaborate in this project.
A project stamped with extreme challenges. A rare fact for a first watch creation, the GMT «Roller Guardian Time» is equipped with its own caliber manufactured by LADOIRE, baptized Calvet/01/RGT. This automatic movement with micro-rotor bears the landmark of the «motorist» (ASXP) and of the «preparator» (SR Watch Makers).
The concept of this timepiece’s complication is revolutionary: entirely set on micro ball bearings, «Roller Guardian Time» has no hands, besides the off-center hand for the GMT. The indication of Hours, Minutes, Seconds is made by three revolving discs, mounted on ceramic ball bearings without lubricant. The setting of time can be done with the crown positioned at 8 o’clock (screw-on crown). The GMT function is indicated by a profiled hand and is equipped with a fast correction regulator positioned at 2 and 4 o’clock. Each component of the movement has been thoroughly thought through, conceived and industrialized specifically for LADOIRE. Thus, only with the help of state-of-the-art partners could this ambitious project materialize.
Like for Haute Couture, the esthetic of the RGT lies on the precursor of made-to-measure. The look of the timepiece was entirely conceived by Lionel Ladoire: the exclusive asymmetry of the case is compensated by a slender fuselage, relaying an impression of astonishing equilibrium, mixing raw masculinity and opulence. This opulence, however, isn’t ostentatious. Particularly tactile, there is softness emanating from the timepiece, which procures an incredible sensation of comfort when wearing it.
Equally prestigious, the bracelet of the RGT is exclusive to LADOIRE and was conceived following the rigorous criteria of fine leather goods manufacture. Composed of inserts in two parts positioned at 6 and 12 o’clock, it is cut in smooth full skin leather. The bracelet is fixed onto a dual buckle in gold or titanium, depending on the model, fully developed by Ladoire. In total, 17 integrations were necessary to obtain this level of finish. A perfection that is repeated with the hand-crafted double weaving and the black anti-allergic leather or alligator.
TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS
Movement manufactured by Ladoire
• Caliber with automatic winding-mechanism, manufactured
«Calvet/01/RGT» 26 jewels, on platinum case :
9h 3h > 39.50mm / 12h 6h > 29.50mm, thickness 9.30mm.
• Bridges of circular geometry
• Micro rotor up-lifted with two parts 15/2, Position 6 o’clock
• Balance at 8.40
• Escapement 15.1
• Optimized gear train profile
• Frequency 18’000 a/h (2.5Hz)
• Power reserve 44 hours
Functions
• Hours, minutes, seconds. Time setting with the crown,
position 8 o’clock
• Indication H, M, S by discs set on ceramic ball-bearing
• GMT with fast correction position 2 and 4 o’clock
• GMT indication by profiled hand
Case
• Gold and Titanium alloy in 3 modules:
bezel/case/back-case.
• Dimensions 9h 3h > 56mm / 12h 6h > 45mm,
thickness 16.3mm
• Bezel sapphire glass incurved with anti-reflection
treatment
• Back-case sapphire glass convex with anti-reflection
treatment
• Water resistance 50 meters / 165 feet
Source: Ladoire |
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