Louis Vuitton Turns the Tambour Convergence Into a Mirror of Hardened Steel

Image Source: Written by Amelia R. Lange Louis Vuitton has a gift for making the familiar feel new. Its latest move: the Tambour Convergence Mirror Steel, reference W9ST11. The Maison has taken its most poetic timepiece and recast it in a steel so hard and so highly polished that the watch looks less like a watch and more like a piece of liquid silver on the wrist. A Steel Unlike Any Other This is no ordinary stainless steel. Developed in house by La Fabrique des Boîtiers, Louis Vuitton's own casemaker, the alloy goes through a special hardening treatment that gives its surface a rating of 1,130 Vickers. That is close to the hardness of the high-tech ceramics used in fine watchmaking. Standard 316L steel, by comparison, sits near 150 Vickers. That resistance comes at a cost in time. Polishing a surface this hard by hand to a perfect mirror takes the Maison's artisans about three times longer than finishing rose gold.

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