Steampunk is a style that brings people together!

At the Baselworld trade show in 1998, Vianney Halter introduced the Antiqua perpetual calendar. The watchmaker already had many years of experience restoring under his belt and had worked at THA (Techniques Horlogères Appliquées), where watches were created for Breguet, Audemars Piguet, Jaquet Droz and Franck Muller. But it was the Antiqua that allowed the watchmaker's signature accent to shine through.

Part of the Antiqua's DNA and heritage has been inherited by the second model made in a collaboration between Louis Erard and Vianney Halter.

The system used by the watchmaker, where neighboring dials display various indications, pairs excellently with Louis Erard's main draw: regulator watches. This was already noticeable on their first collaboration in 2020.

Now the partners have gone further and have added more steampunk vibes to Le Régulateur Louis Erard x Vianney Halter II — the style that instantly made the Antiqua stand out.

The novelty is presented in two different versions for two marketing channels: retail-exclusive ref. 85246AA03.BVA172 and ref. 85246AA02.BVA172 for the e-boutique. Availability and pricing for the run are the same for both versions — 178 pieces for each version at CHF 4444 a pop — the only difference is how their dials are configured.

One version has two counters placed on a vertical satin-brushed red-gilt dial base. The second version flips the design: red-gilt counters rest on a rhodium-plated base.

The signature figure-eight typically formed by the subdials on regulators by Louis Erard is noticeably tilted here to make way for the Louis Erard logo at 2 o'clock and the Vianney Halter logo at 8 o'clock.

Vianney Halter is said to have been charged with working on the dial's look. The watchmaker's style also clearly comes through in the winding crown's riveted design.

While the Antiqua's movement was developed based on an automatic Lemania 8810, the familiar Sellita SW266-1 with a customized rotor by Louis Erard was chosen for the budget Le Régulateur Louis Erard x Vianney Halter II. Its steel case measures 43 mm in diameter.