Alain Silberstein, an interior architect and artist turned watch designer, is one of the original pioneers of independent watch brands and champions of mechanical watches. His eponymous brand launched in the mid-1980s, amid the quartz crisis, focusing on a bold, genre-defying designs and mechanical movements. With a signature look inspired by the Bauhaus, abstract art, and contemporary design/architecture movements, Alain Silberstein’s watches truly stood out in an industry that was turning ever more traditional. His brand closed down in 2012 after a solid run.
In 2019, Louis Erard teamed up with Alain Silberstein on their first collaboration watches, bringing the designer’s bold vision to a new generation of collectors. The regulator design featured bold shapes and primary colors, both common elements in Silberstein’s work, for a result that is part pop art, part haute horology. In 2021, they teamed up again for a new line featuring a regulator, a mono-pusher chronograph, and a quirky day-date that utilizes emojis for the day called the “Smile-Day,” all in a genuinely novel 40mm all-titanium case design featuring a matte cylinder that appears to float within polished brackets.
The Smile-Day has returned for 2024 with a new playful palette. A steel gray dial is offset by a white chapter ring with a red marker at 12 and bright blue for the rest. The hands take the fun to another level with Kandinsky-inspired forms, including a circular hour with a triangle as a pointer in red, a large blue arrow for the minutes that spans the entire dial, and a serpentine seconds in yellow. At six is a date window, just below the provocative “smile day,” which can be set to different emojis depending on your mood. The watch is paired with a silver nylon strap with hook and loop closure.
Powering the Louis Erard x Alain Silberstein Smile-Day Gray is the Swiss-made Sellita SW220-1 caliber in élaboré grade. An automatic caliber, it features 26 jewels, hacking, hand-winding, an approximate 38-hour power reserve, and a frequency of 28,800 bph.
- Case: Polished Grade 5 Titanium and Matte Grade 2 Titanium
- Dial: Steel Gray
- Movement: Sellita SW220-1
- Complications: Smile Day, Date
- Winding: Automatic
- Lens: Sapphire
- Strap: Silver Nylon with Hook and Loop Closure, Titanium hardware
- Water Res.: 100M
- Diameter: 40mm
- Length: 47mm
- Thickness: 11.6mm
- Lug Width: 22mm
- Swiss-Made
- Limited to 178 Pieces Globally
Based in the Jura mountains, the birthplace of watchmaking, Louis Erard embodies the values of Swiss mechanics, the tradition that keeps its promises. Combining luxury, timelessness and elegance, this independent brand is renowned for its mechanical watches and in particular its iconic regulators. A collection on which the brand, founded by Mr Louis Erard in 1929, built its reputation.
Today, continuing the work of its founder and honouring the watchmaking tradition, the Maison is reinterpreting the codes in a contemporary language, revisiting its artistic crafts and opening up its field of expression through collaborations and exchanges of know-how. Louis Erard continues to set itself apart from mass-market brands. Inspired by high-end watchmaking, the brand draws on its values to enhance its mechanical timepieces.
