Louis Vuitton announced Raúl Pagès as the winner of the first edition of the Louis Vuitton Watch Prize for Independent Creatives – the prestigious biennial award that recognises innovation, audacity, and savoir-faire to promote and support independent watchmaking. The award was presented on February 6, 2024, during a ceremony and reception attended by many of the world’s leading watchmaking experts and enthusiasts at the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris. Based in a small village in Neuchâtel, Switzerland, Raúl Pagès learned his trade as a restorer of watchmaking masterpieces before becoming an independent watchmaker in 2012. Today, he creates about four timepieces a year, crafting them entirely by hand, from design and development of the mechanism to manufacturing, assembly and finishes. His winning design, the RP1 – Régulateur à détente is a manual winding wristwatch in stainless steel with a unique construction, featuring a calibre fitted with pivoted detent escapement.