MODERN MASCULINITY

The Chronograph is the most sports-oriented watch in the new Polaris collection and stands out with a dial that is ideally designed to display all the elements in a readable way.

While the chronograph is one of the most practical complications for measuring short time intervals, it can also give a stylish boost to all our outfits. The new Polaris Chronograph made by Jaeger-LeCoultre ideally achieves this aim thanks to an excellent dial design. Two oversized figures at 12 and 6 o’clock provide a perfectly symmetrical axis separating the two bicompax sub-dials for the second and minute totalisers. Large triangular indices in a very contemporary spirit provide easy reading of the time elements. A bezel equipped with a tachymetric scale encircles the dial. The Super-LumiNova® coating guarantees excellent readability, even in low light. It’s worth noting that the manufacture had the good idea to omit a date counter, which would have overloaded the design. Good thinking!

The Polaris Chronograph comes in two versions. The steel version can be worn with a machined strap made of the same metal or a leather model. The dial is black or deep navy blue. The second version is more exclusive and made of rose gold, with an anthracite dial featuring a sunburst, grained and opaline treatment for that extra refined touch. The model is worn with an elegant strap made of brown leather.

Price: 8,200 EUR (steel) – 9,900 EUR (rose gold) www.jaeger-lecoultre.com

By Dan Diaconu

WATER AWAKENING

The brand celebrates the 50^th anniversary of the Memovox with the launch of the new Polaris collection. All the original attractions are preserved, including the alarm function.

1968. Young people came together, determined to change the world. The same year, Jaeger-LeCoultre unveiled its revolutionary watch. The Memovox was the first diving watch with an alarm function to alert divers during underwater excursions. Fifty years later, the manufacture has given a new life to this iconic watch with a series limited to 1,000 pieces that will be joining the brand-new Polaris collection to be launched at the SIHH (Salon de la Haute Horlogerie) in Geneva in January. Like the original model, this version features three crowns on a 42-mm-wide steel case. The upper crown is used to set the alarm. The middle one adjusts the revolving inner bezel. And the lower crown moves the hour and minute hands to set the time.

The Polaris Memovox is driven by an automatic mechanical movement, the calibre 956, providing 44 hours of power reserve.

This diver’s watch is watertight down to 200m. It is worn with a rubber strap featuring an original folding clasp for greater comfort on land and in the sea.

Price: 12,800 EUR www.jaeger-lecoultre.com

By Dan Diaconu

A BOND MADE TO LAST

This limited series of the Reverso Tribute Duoface on a cordovan leather strap gives two brands the chance to excel in their respective fields.

What do Prince Charles, the actor Tommy Lee Jones and the great polo player Adolfo Cambioso have in common? They all wear Casa Fagliano footwear. The bond with the equestrian team sport and the reputation for soft and strong leather has meant the brand has been excelling itself since its foundation in 1892. No wonder Jaeger-LeCoultre launched a partnership with the Argentinian company in 2011 that continues in early 2018 with a limited edition Reverso Tribute Duoface Casa Fagliano (100 available) on a two-tone cordovan leather strap. The light and dark brown hues on the handmade strap perfectly match the iconic Art Deco-style rose gold case (49.4 x 29.9mm). The hem and overstitching bring to mind the details on the professional polo players’ boots made by Casa Fagliano.

The recto dial on the Reverso Tribute Duoface Casa Fagliano has a satin-finished slate sunburst finish bearing the hours, minutes and small seconds. The verso side has a guilloché silver Clous de Paris pattern, enables you to set a second time zone and has a 24 hour day/night indicator. The time features are all tracked by dauphine-shape hands fuelled by a manual-wind 852/2 mechanical movement with a 42-hour power reserve.

The Reverso Tribute Duoface Casa Fagliano is only available in Jaeger-LeCoultre stores.

Price on request www.jaeger-lecoultre.com

By Dan Diaconu

VISUAL EMOTION

Prepare to be blown away when expertise, daring and creativity set the scene for a limitless watchmaking playground!

There’s usually just one step separating architecture and art but the success of a project depends on its ability to enhance a design. Jaeger-LeCoultre has certainly pulled it off with the Hybris Artistica Mystérieuse. The first thing that blows you away when you see the timepiece is the dial’s glittering aventurine disc delicately covered by an openwork mother-of-pearl rosette. A majestic flying tourbillon appears to be the only thing alive on this incredible composition. Where have the hands gone? The Sentier manufacture’s watchmakers have really showcased their ingenuity here! The dial is actually made up of two rotating discs and the one in the centre houses the tourbillon with the position of the complication providing the hours. The second disc on the chapter ring has an understated gilded triangle tracking the minutes.

This impressive layout is fuelled by a self-winding movement containing 441 parts. The in-house 941 calibre provides a 50-hour power reserve from inside the 42mm case. Just like the dial, delicate rose gold embroidery wraps around the semi-precious stone on its sides and lugs. The sapphire back unveils a rotor that has been openworked by hand following countless painstaking operations.

The Hybris Artistica Mystérieuse is ultra-limited edition with just 5 available. It comes with a black leather strap and rose gold deployment clasp.

Price: €384,000 www.jaeger-lecoultre.com

By Dan Diaconu

HIGH-FLYING ATHLETE

This two-tone model sees the brand give the Master Compressor Chronograph Ceramic a stylish new masculine personality.

A competition in London followed by another in Beijing. There’s barely time to unpack before you’re off again to Los Angeles. Athletes are serious travellers too. Jaeger-LeCoultre has designed an exceptional timepiece to join them on their travels; the Master Compressor Chronograph Automatic Ceramic pairs a chronograph with a second time zone. Three wide trapezoid hands in rose gold burst from the black dial bearing white markers. The large luminescent hand tracks the minutes whilst the two shorter hour hands are the same length. The openwork hand is for local time and the other is filled with luminescent material and tracks home time. The time functions are joined by a subtle date display and day/night indicator.

This model’s wide 46mm black ceramic case is brightened up by a rose gold crown and pushers. The pairing of materials and colours gives the Master Compressor Chronograph Automatic Ceramic a look that’s both stylish and sporty.

Price: €15,800 www.jaeger-lecoultre.com

By Dan Diaconu

FOR THE SEASONED TRAVELLER

Two dials for two time zones… All the unique expertise of Jaeger-LeCoultre can be found in this new version of the Reverso, a truly evergreen watch.

In 1994, Jaeger-LeCoultre released the first Reverso watch with a movement able to display time information on two dials. Since then, these watches have provided their lucky owners with some very practical features via the two distinct dials. With the Reverso Tribute Duoface collection, the watchmakers are perpetuating this expertise with a timepiece characterised by discreet elegance and a distinctive, now timeless Art Deco style. Inside the rectangular case with its very contemporary size (42.9 x 25.5mm) is the calibre 854A a hand-wound movement providing 42 hours of power reserve. The time can be set very easily on either dial with the help of a crown and a slider hidden in one of the edges of the case, allowing the user to select the dial they want to change.

For this new, rose gold version, the front displays hours, minutes and seconds on a dial with a grained silver finish. Like all the Reverso watches since the 1930s, a press on the case results in it pivoting to reveal the back. On the Reverso Tribute Duoface there is a second time zone with a day/night indicator over 24 hours instead of a second hand. The anthracite grey dial features two finishes, a guilloché “Clous de Paris” pattern on the outside and an opaline finish in the centre. The two dials share dauphine-style hands and golden hand-applied indices.

This classic watch made by Jaeger-LeCoultre comes with a black leather strap with a rose gold folding clasp.

Price: €20,000 www.jaeger-lecoultre.com

By Dan Diaconu

SOUND AND VISION

Get ready for a great spectacle! Jaeger-LeCoultre masters a long list of major complications and shows its skills in fine watchmaking here in breathtaking style.

In the Master Grande Tradition Grande Complication, fine watchmaking has found an exceptional home and a medium of expression worthy of the mechanical feat achieved by Jaeger-LeCoultre. On a sublime satin blue dial, the watchmakers have set their signature and highlighted their skill. Delicate dauphine-style hour and minute hands move around a representation of the skies of the northern hemisphere, with constellations such as the Great Bear and Cassiopeia. It also displays the 12 constellations of the zodiac. Around this map, a sun turns once every 24 hours. In the process it shows the signs of the zodiac, the months and the days on a circular scale.

At 6 o’clock, an orbital flying tourbillon joins in the spectacle, revolving around the dial anti-clockwise in 23 hours, 56 minutes and 4 seconds. Why? The mechanism does not show civil time, but sidereal time, a measurement used by astronomers to follow the trajectory of distant stars.

To complete this watchmaking masterpiece, Jaeger-LeCoultre has included a minuter repeater function with “cathedral” chimes and trebuchet hammers in the 527 components of the hand-decorated manual-winding movement. This complication can ring on the hour, quarters of an hour and every minute as wished. Precious materials combined with a refined execution result in a crystal sound of great purity. This exceptional calibre is set in a delicate 45mm-wide rose-gold case, giving the notes room to flourish.

Price: €359,000 www.jaeger-lecoultre.com

By Dan Diaconu

TIMEKEEPING AND ELEGANCE

With this apposite version of the Duomètre Quantième Lunaire, Jaeger-LeCoultre shows how aesthetic choices can influence the clarity of the dial.

Playing with contrasts to affirm your personality. The principle, used in the world of fashion, also applies in top-of-the-range watchmaking. And so Jaeger-LeCoultre has given a new face to its Duomètre Quantième Lunaire, first launched in 2010. The recipe is simple. The hand-grained and silver finish on the original dial has given way to a grey opaline, similar to a grey magnetite, a mineral in the spinel family. The result? The watch has gained in personality, while reading the time information is now a pure joy thanks to the contrast produced by the rose gold hands and indices.

The Duomètre Quantième Lunaire still displays the hours and minutes, the date and the moon phase on two separate discs. The seconde foudroyante hand that moves in leaps of 1/6th of a second has kept its strategic and purely aesthetic position in another disc at 6 o’clock. This sublime watchmaking composition is the setting for a large central second hand of great finesse.

Excellence is still the watchword for the mechanism, protected by a case that is also made of rose gold. The timepiece is powered by the innovative 381 Jaeger-Lecoultre movement and its Dual-Wing architecture, which stands out through the presence of two independent sources of energy. A first barrel, dedicated to the balance, guarantees precision, while another is used to display all the time data. This unique architecture means that when the crown is pulled out, the balance continues to work. When combined with the presence of a “jumping seconds” system that can be used to stop the two second hands at the same time and reset them to zero, it guarantees perfect synchronisation when resetting the time.

Price: 40 400 EUR www.jaeger-lecoultre.com

By Dan Diaconu

A QUARTER OF A CENTURY

To provide a fitting celebration for the 25^th anniversary of the Master Control collection, the watchmaker from the Joux Valley is presenting three new timepieces with a similar appearance, but very different functions.

Created in 1992, the family of round Master Control watches by Jaeger-LeCoultre has not had as much success as the Reverso collection, it’s true, but have nonetheless attracted a fair number of clients who love classic timepieces and who want something more accessible in terms of case shape. For the 25^th anniversary, celebrated this year, three new Master Control models have been released, ranging from the most simple to the most complex: the Master Control Date, the Master Chronograph and the Master Geographic.

The steel cases with fixed bezels, between 39 and 40mm in diameter, according to the model, and the dials, blending circular brushed silver and sanded opaline, features in all three watches. The Master Control trio also share the same automatic mechanical movement, although they have three different calibres.

The Master Control model has the JLC 899/1 calibre to power the hour, minute and second displays at the centre, plus the date at 3 o’clock, while providing a power reserve of 38 hours. On the dial, the indices and Arabic numerals for the hours are linked by a circle, forming a discreet sun, across which the openwork, blued hands move.

On the Master Chronograph model, the dial is decorated by two guilloché discs with circular grooves, one to count the minutes of the chronograph (at 3 o’clock) and the other for the hours (at 9 o’clock), while the seconds tick away in the centre, as do the running hours and minutes. The calibre JLC 751G, running at 28,800 vibrations per hour, drives these functions and provides a power reserve of 65 hours.

Last but not least, the Master Geographic is a particularly useful watch for anyone who travels a good deal, since it features a second time zone, displayed in a counter at 6 o’clock on the dial, and which is adjusted using a pusher at 10 o’clock. A long counter running from 7.30 to 4.30 displays the names of 24 cities in 24 different time zones. A 24-hour indicator at 7 o’clock rounds off the functions for globe trotters with the calibre JLC 939B/1 providing the power.

Price: 5,900 CHF (Master Control Date) – 8,400 CHF (Master Chronograph) – 9,800 CHF (Master Geographic)

By Sharmila Bertin

AN ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE CHOICE 

The manufacturer from the Joux Valley has expanded its Rendez-Vous collection with a new diameter, Large, adding to the two previous models, Small and Medium, to provide a complete range for its clientele

Have you ever tried to choose a timepiece from the Rendez-Vous Night & Day collection on the Jaeger-LeCoultre website? It seems like an almost impossible task, given the vast choice on offer in this mainly feminine family of watches created in 2012. And just to sow a little more doubt in our minds, Jaeger-LeCoultre has now added a new diameter!

In fact, the Rendez-Vous Night & Day collection has been reorganised in the same way this year as the Reverso was in 2016. It now features three different diameters: 29mm (Small), 34mm (Medium) and the new 38.2mm (Large), a very contemporary size suited to every wrist. A range of metals, such as steel and pink gold, adorn the watch case on the Rendez-Vous Night & Day, which can be crowned either with a polished bezel or one covered in brilliant-cut diamonds.

Unfortunately for the indecisive, Jaeger-LeCoultre has not stopped at sizes and materials, but has gone even further into the range of possibilities with varied colours and textures, from sunburst dark purple or steel grey to velvet black via white mother-of-pearl and the silvery opaline with the delicately crinkled look. The hour rim, made up of rounded Arabic numerals, known as ‘floral’ style, is adapted to each colour: black, silver or gold. The same goes for the hour and minute sword-shaped hands at the centre, along with a second hand, with each coated in blue, silver or gold. At the bottom of the watch face, between 5 and 7 o’clock, a semi-circular window shows Night & Day.

Each diameter of the watch has its own mechanism. The 967A calibre drives the functions on the Small version, with the 898A/1 on the Medium and the 898D/1 on the new 38.2mm diameter. They all provide between 40 and 42 hours of power reserve.

Last but not least, the Rendez-Vous Night & Day is a “chameleon” model. So, an interchangeable system allows you to change very easily, and as much as you like, the look of your watch, by opting for different types of strap, with metal links, alligator leather or shiny satin.

Price on request.

By Sharmila Bertin