For more than 180 years L’Epée has occupied a singular place in horology: a manufacture born in 1839 that built its reputation on finely made regulators, music-box mechanisms, and exquisite clocks. Today, L’Epée is an unusual Swiss house entirely dedicated to high-end clocks, rather than wristwatches. From its origins in the French-Swiss borderlands to its current position as an artist-maker of mechanical objets d’art, L’Epée marries old-world horological craft with an appetite for narrative, scale and whimsy. This is a brand ethos that treats the clock as both an accurate timekeeper and a kinetic sculpture.
L’Epée’s contemporary identity is best understood as the combination of three things: rigorous mechanical know-how (escapements, bridges and multi-day power reserves handled with finishing expected in haute horlogerie), collaboration with creative designers and other maisons, and a willingness to make clocks that tell stories rather than simply hours and minutes. The result is a catalog that ranges from pared-back, elegantly proportioned tower clocks to exuberant, narrative-driven pieces whose forms reference war machines, vintage race cars, aircraft and even grenades. That playful courage sets L’Epée apart: time is respected, but it is also an invitation to imagine novel ways to make timekeeping fun.
Today, we’re looking at some of L’Epée’s creations and how the brand instills its playfulness into the oldest form of timekeeping.
MB&F × L’Epée 1839 – Sherman: a mechanical soldier with soul
In collaboration with MB&F, Sherman is emblematic of L’Epée’s spirit. Part character, part clock, the Sherman borrows its visual language from toy tanks and retro robots to produce a compact automaton that nevertheless houses serious horology: an eight-day, manually wound movement, articulated “arms,” and a face that reads like the front of a tiny cockpit. The Sherman balances personality and finish; finishes and materials (palladium, gold plating) are treated with the same precision as the movement inside. Far from novelty, the Sherman is a studied exercise in giving mechanical time a face and a gesture — an object designed to spark conversation while reliably keeping time.
What matters about the Sherman is how it reframes the clock’s social role. L’Epée and MB&F take the clock off the mantelpiece and put it in the centre of the room’s narrative: it’s a companion, a desk mascot and a miniature sculpture. That humanizing impulse, endowing horology with charm without compromising technical integrity, is a throughline in L’Epée’s catalog.
TIME FAST D8 – racing aesthetics, horological engineering
If the Sherman is a character, the Time Fast D8 is a kinetic homage to speed. Designed in collaboration with ECAL and by Georg Foster, the Time Fast reads as a 1950s Grand Prix racer: long, low, with visible mechanics and a driver’s “cockpit” that houses the balance. But the D8 is much more than a themed objet; it is a fully fledged eight-day clock made from hundreds of finely finished components, 289 components to be exact, with rolling rubber wheels, an exposed escapement and a sculptural chassis that transforms the notion of a desk clock into that of a collectible automobile on four mechanical feet. The tactile pleasures are integral to the design. Setting the time and winding the movement are immensely playful, done by turning the steering wheel and winding the movement by moving the wheels in reverse – this is an adult version of Hot Wheels for horology enthusiasts.
The Time Fast D8 also demonstrates L’Epée’s aptitude for scale and storytelling. The company doesn’t simply miniaturize watchmaking; it amplifies it, presenting mechanical function as theatre. The D8’s limited editions, colorways and racing-inspired detailing emphasize the collector logic L’Epée cultivates: these are objects for display, for handling, and for connoisseurs who read craftsmanship in both metalwork and silhouette.
TIME FLIES — an aeronautical poem in brass and balance springs
Time Flies transforms a 1930s style plane into a refined eight-day clock. Where the D8 is muscular and exuberant, Time Flies opts for pared-down lines and evocative negative space: a propeller motif, a fuselage reduced to its elegant essentials, and exposed mechanical elements that suggest a heart beating inside a fuselage. The clock reads as both nostalgia and reinterpretation. It references an era of glamorous flight while using contemporary finishing and horological construction to ground the design in present-day craft.
This is where the marriage of form and function comes into play. As with a real airplane, power comes from the front where the engine is located, and is generated by a fully openworked crown reminiscent of engine cooling radiators just behind the propeller. As for the airplane’s control and instrumentation systems in the cockpit, we find the beating heart of the clock in the pilot’s seat. With a horizontal precision regulator in its cockpit, the constantly oscillating balance-wheel of the regulator draws the eye, and is protected from both cosmic radiation and curious fingers by a series of small panels forming the cockpit’s cage.
GRENADE — provocative form, philosophical function
Perhaps the most philosophically cheeky of L’Epée’s pieces, the Grenade translates a compact, volatile object into a desk clock that is as much a conceptual provocation as a timekeeper. This timepiece had its moment in the pop culture limelight when rapper and actor, ASAP Rocky wore it around his neck in a music video a few years ago. The Grenade invites reflection: it is a compact mantel clock whose silhouette and name encourage the owner to consider the relationship between urgency and control. With the Grenade, the pin is the timepiece’s key, allowing for the setting of the time and the winding of the 8-day movement. Modeled off the historical MKII grenade that uses a pin to activate the explosive, L’Epée’s Grenade almost tricks the mind to concentrate a little more than usual on time-setting and winding after pulling the pin.
