Reveal the inner mystery veiled in a turquoise soul
If you are a fan of Maurice Lacroix, by now you would be quite familiar with one of the renowned independent Genevan watchmakers and designers, Label Noir, founded in 2011, with whom they have collaborated on two other occasions, one in 2020, and the other in 2024; they were sold out as soon as they hit the display cases. By popular demand early this year, they unveiled their 3rd collaboration, Maurice Lacroix Label Noir Aikon Manufacture Skeleton. Once again, it’s a masterpiece, not aesthetically titillating but also technically brilliant, and of course, it’s available in limited numbers.
Like its name, the new timepiece is, of course, mainly black, and this time, they decided to revisit the Aikon collection. This time, the creative mind at Label Noir decided to add a little contrasting colour to make the ‘pop’ and add a little soul to the otherwise mystical all-black. The stainless steel of the Aikon 45mm case is coated with matte black DLC, which accentuates the dark and mysterious persona and further enhances its mystique. A smoked gradient sapphire crystal that helps peep all the marvels that lie beneath it.
The skeleton dial for one is shrouded by dark smoke around the flange, with bare minimal visibility of the mechanism of the Manufacture automatic Calibre ML234, which is borrowed from the Masterpiece Collection, as we catch a glimpse of the balance wheel, the barrel and the skeletonised rhodium plated bridges and black DLC coated plates as it clears around the centre. The applique hour markers sit on the flange and is encircled with a pin-lined around them on the flange in turquoise. The darkened, centrally located hour and minute hands are coated with turquoise SuperLuminova, as are the small second hands and markers in the sub-dial at six o’clock. The beautiful blueish green hue gently reflects and permeates through the smoked sapphire crystal, giving the dark, mysterious timepiece an ethereal allure. In short, aesthetically its beautifully enhanced.
And if you flipped the watch over, you would see that the continuation of the smoked black theme is carried over onto the sapphire crystal caseback, which reveals the skeletal movement on the reverse side, including the rotor of the automatic winding system, which provides 48 hours of power reserve. The watch comes with a grey nubuck strap and a turquoise rubber strap for those cocktail soirees or a party on a yacht, and even during the day. Being black gives it that versatility.
