At this 12 months’s Watches and Wonders, Jaeger-LeCoultre pulled out all of the stops for its homage to its polo origins. It’s sales space—the 1931 Polo Membership—is an immersive three-storey house that reinterprets horse stables, however it feels extra like a museum, a temple of tribute to its enduring icon, the Reverso.

Know Your Historical past

We all know the story of the Reverso’s origin—Swiss businessman César de Trey had an issue. In India, British military officers challenged de Trey to create a watch that might tahan the rigours of polo; the watch glass typically broke from the impression of the ball or mallet. De Trey labored with Jacques-David LeCoultre, and thru Jaeger SA, tasked French industrial designer René-Alfred Chauvot to design a case that, on one facet, tells time, and by swivelling the mechanism, exhibits the onerous metal facet. Thus, the Reverso—a easy metal watch with a black dial and Artwork Deco trimmings—would come with extra variations like baton indexes, colored dials, gold circumstances and within the Nineteen Nineties, excessive issues.

It’s a stalwart piece. A timeless icon that’s recognisable by its signature traits: the horizontal gadroons, the triangular lugs, and the built-in pivoting case. The clean caseback grew to become a canvas for conventional ornamental arts. Jaeger-LeCoultre manufacture is the one institution that has its in-house gem-setters, enamellers, engravers, and guilloché specialists.

“This Is Only a Tribute.”

With the Reverso historical past in thoughts, Jaeger-LeCoultre introduces 9 new fashions to the Reverso assortment. Listed below are two that stood out to us.

From the technical area, we now have a Reverso Tribute Minute Repeater with a completely spanking new in-house motion: the Calibre 953. Minute repeaters are sophisticated beasts, particularly once you’re becoming them into an oblong case. Not solely does it want to inform time, it needs to be a mechanical songbird. The chime’s tonality is measured to make sure that every be aware sounds with readability and concord.

The entrance dial is a hand-guilloché barley-seed sample with a number of layers of grand feu enamel in a brand new teal blue color. When the dial catches the sunshine at sure angles, it types an optical phantasm of motion. 4 hours are wanted for the guilloche and one other eight for the enamelling.

The reverse dial is open-worked, revealing the intricate guts of the repeater mechanism. The layers of transferring components appear like they’re floating. Discover the hand-bevelled bridges, their silvery sheen contrasting with the case’s pink gold, which contrasts with the black alligator leather-based strap. The slider along side the watch case prompts the chimes.

Every Reverso Tribute Minute Repeater comes with a crafted field that homes six distinct limited-edition Reverso fashions. That is solely restricted to 30 items.

Jaeger-LeCoultre launched the Reverso Géographique as a journey watch in 1998. In 2025, the Home releases a world time complication (a brand new in-house Calibre 834) to the Reverso Tribute for the primary time: the Reverso Tribute Geographic.

A sunray end graces the entrance dial with a big date show at 12 o’clock and the round small seconds show at six. Flip the case over and also you’re introduced with the world time show set on a refined caseback. The town names are engraved instantly onto the caseback; set throughout the aperture, a rotating 24-hour ring signifies day and evening; the world map sits within the center.

Created in-house, the areas representing the oceans on the map are hollowed out with a laser, which leaves the land lots and meridian strains as raised areas. Then, lacquer is utilized by hand to fill within the oceans utilizing a syringe. Lastly, the completed disc is polished over and over till a delicate three-dimensional impact is achieved.

In contrast to different world timers, for the Reverso Tribute Geographic, when setting the reference metropolis to 12 o’clock, town disc rotates whereas the 24-hour show stays static. It’s operated through a hidden pusher on the prime of the case (solely accessible when the case is faraway from the cradle). Every slide of the pusher strikes the ring with a 1-hour bounce (for those who miss town, you’ll have to slip 23 extra instances to course appropriate).

The Reverso Tribute Geographic is accessible both in metal and 18k pink gold; the latter is proscribed to 150 items.

For extra info, go to Jaeger-LeCoultre’s web site.

This story was first seen on ESQUIRE SG.

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