The New Hand

Jun 05, 2023

New dial layout, new colour. Same 35 coats of lacquer

Burberry has its trench coat. Montblanc has its fountain pen. Smythson has its diaries. All these companies make many other lovely things too, but one iconic product reigns supreme.

That can be a double-edged sword, and brands can either embrace their one-product fame, or push against it.

The watchmaker Jaeger-LeCoultre is indisputably best-known for its rectangular Reverso, the Art Deco dress watch with the reversible face, one of only a handful of watches that may genuinely described as a design classic.

It’s a status it has hardly shied away from.

Every five-year anniversary of the Reverso is met with another raft of hyped limited-edition releases in precious metals with rare dials.

Teeing up its 90th year one month early in December 2020, it announced “a year-long celebration of Reverso”, the centrepiece of which was a series of tribute watches to itself, the Reverso Tribute Duoface.

An exhibition, Reverso Stories, set off on a three-year world tour, and has most recently touched down in Seoul.

As if to further elevate the watch’s status to high art, it also commissioned a set of Reversos with ‘lost’ paintings by Gustave Courbet, Vincent Van Gogh and Gustav Klimt hand-painted onto their dials using enamel, a microscope and a very small brush.

All of which may obscure the fact that Jaeger-LeCoultre also makes many other splendid watches, too.

It’s wonderful chiming Memovox remains something of a cult collector’s favourite.

There is also its Polaris collection, intended to sit somewhere between a sports watch and a dress watch, based on a 1960s Memovox Polaris, and made a permanent pillar of its collections in 2018.

There exist many Polaris options: Polaris date models, Polaris chronographs, Polaris perpetual calendars and entry-level (well, £9,100) Polaris automatics.

Today a new Polaris Chronograph joins that line up – featuring a new dial configuration and being made available in two colours. One with a blue lacquer dial and one with a grey lacquer dial – the latter colour being a first for the collection.

As per the existing line-up, the watch is 42mm – “the ideal [size] for the gentleman driver”, according to the brand – and comes with a chronograph with a 30-minute counter, a central seconds indicator and a tachymeter scale around the outer ring.

The layout has now been rejigged so the running seconds display is on the sub-dial at 9 o’clock.

The finishing on the dial remains it’s USP, and the watch’s stand-out feature.

Hand-applied in artisanal J-LC fashion, it involves a layer of varnish, followed by some 35 coats of translucent lacquer, the better to match the dial’s shade with its gradient.

In a watch world currently defined by Crayola-coloured faces and poppy cartoon character dials, it serves as a timely reminder how one of the classiest brands in watchmaking chooses to do colour in the most artisanal way imaginable – and how it has more up its sleeve than the model with the flippable face.

The new Jaeger-LeCoultre Polaris Chronograph with a grey dial on a beige canvas or a rubber strap is £13,500. The blue dial version on a steel bracelet or rubber strap is £14,000.

jaeger-lecoultre.com

The Rise of Luxury Dashboard Watches

The Rarest MoonSwatch is Reissued. Well, Kind Of

Timex Releases ‘The Perfect Watch’. Yours for £750

The Best Men's Watches Under £2000

Lil Yachty Rocked an Extremely Rare Royal Oak

The 46 Best Watches a Man Can Buy In 2023

Tissot's Hit PRX Now Comes In Ice Blue and Gold

Breitling's New Ironman Endurance Pro Watches

Jonathan Bailey Scuba Dives With His Omega Watch

Ryan Gosling's 'Barbie' Watches, Explained

The Less Watch the Better

All About Cillian Murphy’s Oppenheimer Watches