Jaeger-LeCoultre - Reverso Turns 80
Worldtempus - 6 December 2010
The story of the Reverso's birth is the stuff of legends: colonial India was so polo-crazy that by the end of the nineteenth century 175 polo clubs had sprung up around the country. The wristwatch - which had become all the rage in the early twentieth century - was not something that well-to-do polo players wanted to take off while playing their favorite sport. Naturally, many timepieces suffered broken mineral crystals. This substance could in no way stand up to the trials and tribulations of a polo match, during which well-trained polo ponies can obtain speeds of up to 60 km/h and the balls and mallets fly fast and hard.
Cesar de Trey, a close associate of Jacques-David LeCoultre, had recently become involved in distributing luxury Swiss wristwatches. Upon visiting in India in 1930, he witnessed a game that inevitably included some smashed crystal and the Swiss countryman took the problem to heart. He set engineer Alfred Chauvot to the task of inventing a case that would be suitable for polo. Chauvot filed a Paris patent on March 14, 1931 for a case that turned on its own axis to protect the fragile crystal. De Trey knew that there was only one manufacture in Switzerland to make the mechanical heart for such a watch, and he turned to LeCoultre to create the custom-shaped mechanism for the art deco-inspired timepiece.
The rest, as they say, is history. It was a brilliant principle involving a simple mechanism comprising two spring-mounted spurs that fit into grooves on either side of the watch's frame. Eighty years later, the Reverso case constitutes a full 55 components - reaching a unique complexity that few, if any, other manufacturers can match. "The Reverso is the epitome of function and style," says CEO Jerôme Lambert as he counted the "secrets" of the Reverso's longevity this week in Argentina, which include a perfectly proportioned case, good transition between lugs, strap and case, and functional design. This functional design has also remained as fresh in a daisy in its art deco style for eight full decades, over the course of which 42 calibers have been created to fit into this case. "The emotion of today remains the emotion of tomorrow," he says.
New Reverso Models
On the occasion of this momentous anniversary, Jaeger-LeCoultre introduces several new models to the collection, beginning with the Grande Reverso Ultra Thin, which is housed in the thinnest Reverso case ever made, available in rose gold or stainless steel: 7.2 mm. Lambert revealed that this ultra-svelte size is "a tribute to the 1931 spirit."
Even more of this spirit is displayed by the Grande Reverso Ultra Thin 1931, which is additionally outfitted with a replicated vintage dial from the era: the dial is not marked Jaeger-LeCoultre, but rather "Reverso" as it was fully inspired by a model the brand found in its archives. "The purity of the style was reinterpreted here," Lambert said of the two hand-wound limited edition models.
A third member of this new ultra-thin family powered by a hand-winding caliber is the Grande Reverso Ultra Thin Email, which is characterized by a grand feu enamel dial fired at about 850°C. This version is limited to 100 pieces and comes in a rose gold case.
The new Grande Reverso Duo is based on the original Duo model that first came out in 1994; its claim to fame is "one movement, two time zones on two faces," as Lambert explains. "Back then, a watchmaker had an epiphany," he jokingly explained of the first "practical" use of the Reverso's flip side. Manually wound Caliber 986 with synchronized date also sports a new dial design: white on one side, black on the other.
The SIHH, which begins on January 17, promises the introduction of other new models, including a full set of ladies' Reverso models and a highly innovative and complicated Reverso repeater model that boasts a completely new element never seen before in the watch industry. Stay tuned to Worldtempus for the full story as it unfolds.
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