Since it opened, a decade ago, the confection of billowing glass sails that is the Frank Gehry–designed Fondation Louis Vuitton, in the Bois de Boulogne, has welcomed visitors in their millions to blockbuster shows. At the moment, thousands a day troop through its airy galleries to marvel at the Rothko retrospective, but not all visitors come to genuflect at the altar of Abstract Expressionism. Some come for the watches.
On a Tuesday last month the building was packed with the great and the good of the watch industry: Evelyne Genta, Monaco’s ambassador to the United Kingdom and widow of design legend Gérald Genta; Hodinkee founder Ben Clymer, watchmaking’s Mark Zuckerberg; Mike Tay, Singaporean watch magnate; Justin Reis, co-founder and C.E.O. of trans-national secondary-market retailer WatchBox; Rexhep and Annabelle Rexhepi, the glamour couple of young, independent Geneva watchmaking; the collector’s collector Auro Montanari; Carine Maillard, the ever elegant director of the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève, watchmaking’s Oscars; Carole Forestier-Kasapi, star movement designer.
