Trilobe Une Folle Journée Rodium Editions

Borna Boschunjak

For more information from Watches and Wonders, click here.

Trilobe’s boldest design, Folle Journée, gets small and subtle updates. The rhodium-plated bridge emphasized the colour of the titanium ring floating above. All Folle Journée works feature X-centers of Trilobe caliber manufactured by Le Cercle des Horlogers.

While the watches and the mysterious Geneva are doing well and truly ongoing, Trilobe began the year well before the so-called “Geneva Watch Week,” where most brands launch novelties. These new Trilobe Une Folle Journée Rhodium Editions are only novel in colorways and not the most groundbreaking release of the season, but they are still worth paying attention. They repeat the Fall Journey recipe, which brought the most expressive time display of French avant-garde watchmakers by adding rhodium plating to the bridge under the floating ring.

If you’re new to it, the Trilobe Folle Journée employs three independent rotating rings that are raised above the dial and reads the time with a red triangle marker at 6 o’clock. The outermost ring represents time, the middle conveys minutes, and the smallest ring is seconds. So for the green variant above, the time is 9:06 or after. If it’s readable, you’re in the wrong place. This is a novel way to display time, and Trilobe’s efforts are usually quite a bit.

Looking at the dial, you’re in the best position to actually see something new in the Folle Journée. The granular silver surface offers a much brighter temperament compared to existing all-black models, sitting side by side with the gold variant due to its extra contrast. The green “dial” variant is also new. Titanium-Aluminum-Vanadium (Grade 5 Titanium and i) discs previously existed in black, blue or gray only and were colored with DLC coating.

Trilobe is one of several brands that offer case size choices on most models, but Folle Journée is only available in diameter of 40.5mm and, like many watches in that category, it does not slip under the cuff. The dome-shaped crystal highlights the floating ring, adding an incredible 10.2mm to the overall thickness of 17.8mm. The sharply curved lug, spanning 48mm, is somewhat friendly to small wrists, just like the construction of Grade 5 titanium. Perhaps most interestingly, despite its seemingly complex construction, the Folle Journée has a water resistance rating of 50 meters. This is rare for avant-garde designs like this.

To easily touch the X center of the caliber, which is the center of all Trilobe watches, it is the microrotor caliber built by Le Cercle des Horlogers, recognized by the rotor design, but its architecture is unique to Trilobe. It has a 48-hour power reserve and a 4Hz beat rate, and as we’ve seen from the brand before, its design is very minimal. In my opinion, Trilobe is a plain and minimal environment, so I would like Trilobe to put a little more effort into the caseback side of things, but the aforementioned grain on the dial-side separated by sophisticated chamfers is certainly comfortable.

Trilobe Une Folle Journée Rhodium Editions Pricing and Availability

The Trilobe Une Folle Journée Rodium edition is currently available. Price: €23,500 (INC. VAT, ~US$25,600)

Brand 3 Trilobe Model Forefolder Jar Rhodium Edition Case Dimension 40.5mm(d) x 17.8mm