LE TEMPS RETROUVE by TRILOBE

At first glance, this bust is intriguing. No hands, no dials, no numerals. It is neither a watch nor an automaton. Nothing suggests a horological nature. It invites you to come closer, to listen to the subtle ticking, a discreet witness to the fusion of art and mechanics.

Come closer, and the revelation unfolds; the illusion dissipates: this is not just a sculpture, it is a riddle in motion. A face of your choosing starts to come to life.

A Living Mechanical Sculpture

Here is Le Temps Retrouvé, a living sculpture that disrupts the codes of time and embodies the ultimate expression of Trilobe creativity.
Because our environment sparks reactions in each of us, this mechanical work of art does more than just tell the time: it reveals it, it breathes it, it sculpts it. Named Le Temps Retrouvé, it owes its name to Proust’s masterwork (In Search of Lost Time), a work resolutely focused on memory, the passage of time, and the essence of what surrounds us.

With a perfectly unrestrained vision of time, it stands as a manifesto against the race for the second. A sculpture that invites you to slow down, observe, and interact.

A Sculpture that Breathes, a Time that is Felt

Every detail of this creation has been designed to capture the essence of time, not as a mere measure but as an emotion to be lived and felt.
• Hearing : An organic heartbeat, a subtle rhythm that reminds you of your own vital cadence.
• Touch : Appearing cold to the touch, this transformed marble sculpture absorbs a gentle warmth in sync with its breath.
• Sight : His eyes become the compass of time. They turn, marking the minutes, while his temples slowly open, rhythmically signaling the hours in a silent dance.
• Smell : An independent mechanism diffuses a custom-made fragrance into the air, like a secret breath.
• Taste : As for taste, why not enjoy a madeleine! Each moment is a reminiscence, a sensory journey to the past and the future.

Time, But Not As You Imagined

The time is not displayed… it is revealed to those who take the time to contemplate this face from all angles.
• Hours : Two sculpted rosettes unfold, one petal per hour, marking the passage of time before closing with a breath at midday. • Minutes : They are read in the subtle movement of the eyes, which transforms the expression of the face. • Seconds : Invisible, they are not counted. They are felt, carried by the sculpture’s breath.

A Bespoke Creation for you, with Four Hands

Each piece is a singular adventure, an intimate dialogue between you and Maison Trilobe. An invitation to create together.
In Paris, at our partner workshop, Stéphane Gérard Atelier, a visual artist will sketch the face of your choosing, capturing every detail with precision before sculpting it.

Then, our watchmaking craftsmen will take on the challenge of rethinking the architecture of the movement so it can embrace the form of its features, giving birth to an unparalleled complexity. 2050 components, 2,000 hours of work, ensuring that every part finds its place in this horological melody.
Through a meeting with a Parisian perfumer, a unique fragrance will emerge, crafted for you, by you. A subtle alchemy of emotions and memories, this fragrance will escape into the air with the rhythm of your sculpture’s breath, leaving a subtle imprint.

It doesn’t just perfume; it tells a story, evokes, and breathes life into this mechanical sculpture, making it irresistibly alive.

An Unprecendented Mechanical Challenge: When the Sculpture Moves

Le Temps Retrouvé is a technical masterpiece. Halfway between an automaton and a clock, between sculpture and horology, this vibrant creation defies horological conventions while injecting the poetry of a mechanical dream.

Never before had Trilobe explored such an audacious territory. To bring this exceptional piece to life, we assembled a team capable of combining high precision mechanics with artistic purity.

The Alliance of Matter and Motion

Sculpting a work with a horological mechanism is to make art and engineering converse. Alongside Stéphane Gérard Atelier, we reimagined the place of statuary in contemporary art.

Far from classical ideals, our approach seeks to represent the authenticity of each individual through a raw and unapologetic aesthetic. Every relief, every imperfection becomes a signature. The sculpture comes alive, brimming with energy.

The face, sculpted from marble ceramic and enhanced with an inner palladium sheet covering, combines robustness, delicacy, and precision. This unprecedented material, developed by Trilobe, allows for marble work with tolerances of less than a centimeter in thickness, necessary to integrate the horological mechanism.

Every step of the creation presented a challenge: design, sketches, modeling, mechanical tests, materials, prototyping, adjustments, molding… A jeweler’s work where technique and expressiveness meet.

A Mechanism that Follows the Lines of the Face

Here, nothing is round, nothing is standard.. The mechanism of Le Temps Retrouvé is made up of 95% custom-made horological components, manufactured and decorated by hand by our partner, Manufacture Masur, based in Sainte Croix, a renowned center for fine mechanical art.
We drew inspiration from the heritage of Parisian pendulettes, while transposing it into a futuristic vision: an unconventional mechanical architecture, designed to merge with human morphology and adapt to every curve, every contour of the face.

• The eyes are not mere sculpted lines; they are moving gears. By observing their surroundings, they indicate the minutes with micro-millimeter precision, while subtly altering the expression of the face.
• The temples are not fixed: in the form of rosettes, each petal gradually opens hour by hour, on one side then the other. They close in the blink of an eye after a 12-hour cycle, revealing the hours in a mechanical ballet.

The movement of these rosettes is orchestrated by a set of cams, irregularly shaped mechanical pieces, and through right-angle transmissions that allow them to complete a full turn in 12 hours.

An Unconventional Mechanical Architecture

Here, the movement escapes conventions: it does not fit into a box nor follow a traditional geometric form. Its architecture has been entirely rethought to integrate into the aesthetic of the sculpture:

• A spatialized architecture: Thanks to the exceptional volume available, the driving mechanism of the time gear is relocated from the section dedicated to the measurement and drive. This freedom enabled an unprecedented mechanical construction: a series of angle transmissions, direction inversions, a specific arrangement of the escapement, and a custom-made gear train optimizing each essential function.
• An 8-day power reserve, ensured by an optimized transmission system with a differential screw, guaranteeing extended autonomy and fluidity without compromise.
• A recoil anchor escapement, inspired by modern pendulettes, ensuring exemplary regulation precision.
• A reinvented balance wheel, combining a short brass shaft with a dense tungsten carbide weight, for a perfectly rhythmic ticking despite the compactness of the mechanism.
• An innovative gear system, designed to minimize energy losses and ensure perfect movement fluidity.
• A clever worm gear mechanism, subtly animating the sculpture’s gaze.
• An assembly challenge, expertly handled to meet the constraints related to the complex orientation of the axis exits. Every solution was designed ingeniously to balance technical performance with aesthetic finesse.

A Work of Goldsmithing Down to the Last Detail

Each component is oversized, every finish is amplified. Where traditional • Horological materials: brass, steel, stainless steel, polished and worked
horology hides certain subtleties in the complexity of its components, here everything is exposed.
• Every piece of the movement is custom-made, sometimes taking more than a full day of work to achieve the level of perfection required.
with extreme precision.
• Finishes entirely done by hand, entrusted to a jewelry decorator, for a result worthy of artisanal excellence.

This unique creation is the result of four years of research and development, a somewhat wild collaborative effort, bringing together talents working over 3,000 hours of meticulous design.

A project filled with emotions, where mechanics, free, living, and immersive, comes to life before our eyes.