Introducing Trilobe, Now Available at The Hour Glass

Trilobe makes its official foray into the Asia Pacific and proudly announces its partnership with The Hour Glass. Watch aficionados will soon be able to discover Trilobe’s collections at The Hour Glass in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Australia and New Zealand.

Trilobe partners with The Hour Glass to expands its presence in the Asia Pacific.

Conceived in 2013, Trilobe made its debut in 2018 with its first collection, Les Matinaux. The unconventional way of depicting time using stationary trilobe makers and rotating discs was a revolution for watch design. The trilobe, meaning three lobes, represents the three pillars of time: hours, minutes, and seconds. Its founder, Gautier Massonneau, takes a creative, poetic, and audacious approach to the display of time.  For this, Trilobe was awarded the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève “Petite Aiguille” prize in 2022 for its Nuit Fantastique Dune, recognising the brand’s creative and daring spirit.

Distinctive models for Trilobe launch in Asia Pacific

For the occasion of its expansion into Asia Pacific, Trilobe presents its three distinctive collections: Les Matinaux, Nuit Fantastique, and Une Folle Journée. The collections derive their names from literature, emphasising a romantic perception of time.

Trilobe Les Matinaux in Sunray Silver

Inspired by the poetry of René Char, Les Matinaux marked the breaking dawn for Trilobe, as the first collection for the brand. The distinct display of time is delivered by three separate discs, rotating counterclockwise, with the ornamental Trilobe trefoil motifs marking the hours, minutes and seconds. An openworked floral-pattern lattice, inspired by the rose windows of Sainte-Chapelle in Paris, reveals the slowly spinning fourth wheel in the gear train.

Trilobe Nuit Fantastique Dune. This watch won the GPHG 2022 “Petite Aiguille” prize.

The next evolution for Trilobe is in the Nuit Fantastique, which plunges into the realm of deconstructivism. The new movement advocates going beyond traditional patterns, and its new architecture disrupts the normal conception of shapes and their functions, inviting a free rethink of new geometries, atypical shapes, movement, and the resulting dynamism. Retaining the rotating hour disc on the periphery of the dial, its minutes wheel appears within an aperture, and the seconds wheel alternates between a “Clous de Paris” centre and an azured ring. For its ingenuity, Trilobe was awarded the GPHG 2022 “Petite Aiguille” prize for the Nuit Fantastique Dune.

Trilobe Une Folle Journée Night Blue

Trilobe’s latest collection, Une Folle Journée, makes a creative statement in favour of X-Centricity, the name for the movement that powers its watches. Taking inspiration from Le Mariage de Figaro by Beaumarchais, Une Folle Journée shatters the shackles of tradition by passionately embracing freedom and emancipation, and in turn, embracing individual difference. The three-dimensional design offers a view on a technical motor assembly with 196 custom-made components. This redesigned X-Centric³ calibre, is taking shape around multi-tiered bridges and plates, whose sharp edges have been carefully polished with diamond tools to emphasize the Anthradec graining performed on their plane surfaces.

An X-Centric Movement

The X-Centric calibre developed for Trilobe. The automatic movement features a micro-rotor and is hand-finished.

Trilobe’s watches are equipped with the exclusively designed and developed X-Centric calibre automatic movement. In order to achieve the unique time display, Trilobe’s manufacture partner, le Cercle des Horlogers, took on the technical challenge with an artistically offbeat approach, while perpetuating Swiss watchmaking excellence. A team of 55 expert craftsman embarked on 5 years of research and development to tailor-make the X-Centric calibre.

The 100% Swiss made X-Centric calibre achieves its patented display with three rings – the largest ring for hours, the medium one for minutes, and the smallest for seconds – that follow its own path, rotating in a counter-clockwise direction, without ever overlapping. The technical complexity of this movement is matched with its outstanding detail in the handmade finishes. Sleek, modern, and refined, the attention to the finishes, from the micro-blasted and wedged bridges and plates, to the hand-polished wedged ratchet, to the tints in Trilobe shades. Whether visible or hidden in the heart of the watch, this attention to detail makes this calibre a real artistic creation.

An exploded view of the Trilobe X-Centric calibre

Partners with a taste for difference

The Hour Glass has contributed to the advancement of watch culture in the region over the past four decades. With headquarters in the garden city of Singapore, The Hour Glass has a growing network of over 50 boutiques in the Asia Pacific region. With the region seeing unprecedented growth in its appetite for fine watchmaking, this partnership will provide watch enthusiasts and collectors unparalleled access to the poetic audacity offered by Trilobe watches.

“It is with great pleasure that we proffer Trilobe to our community of seasoned collectors in the Asia Pacific region. Gautier has brought to life his vision of audacious watch design without compromising technicality and quality of finishing. In doing so, Trilobe puts forth an opportunity for self-expression, and this is what distinguishes Trilobe as independent and artisanal,” comments Michael Tay, Group Managing Director, The Hour Glass.

The Hour Glass is proud to be the exclusive retailer of Trilobe in Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, and Thailand.