If you’re a watch brand famous for a particular model, you have one of two options. Concentrate on expanding your other lines in a bid to broaden your appeal as widely as possible. Or play the hits.
In reality, brands tend to alternate between the two.
One year the marketing directive will be all about its most ‘iconic’ line, the next year that model will have been all-but forgotten in favour of reviving interest in a heritage line.
Jaeger Le-Coultre is undoubtedly best-known for its Reverso, the uniquely identifiable Art Deco-style model with the flippable case that was introduced in 1931 to help polo players get through a match without shattering their wristwear.
It has really doubled-down on the model in recent years – not least with a touring exhibition Reverso Stories, that included everything from bespoke Reverso font engravers to French pastry chefs creating cakes using flavours from Switzerland’s Vallée du Joux, where the Reverso is produced, as it toured Paris, London and New York.
Its faith in the Reverso shows no sign of letting up in 2023, with a whole host of new models due to be released through the year.
Perhaps surprisingly for such a recognisable design, it has proved a uniquely versatile template for the brand.
There has been a Reverso with four functioning display faces, a Reverso with Vincent Van Gogh’s lost 1888 painting Sunset at Montmajour perfectly reproduced in enamel on its case, and a Reverso with a pair of tiny shutters operated by a wheel on the side that opened up to show a nude lady.
Sometimes it’s hard to escape the impression the esteemed Swiss manufacture must operate an office sweepstake to see who can come up with the maddest suggestion to squeeze into a tiny wrist canvas sometimes measuring no more than 36mm x 22mm.
Its latest Reverso is the Reverso Tribute Duoface Tourbillon in pink gold. The manually-wound model is a feat of micro-engineering that features a night and day indicator, a tourbillon taking up the lower half of the dial and a second time zone displayed on the flippable case.
The front dial is decorated with a silver sunray pattern, the reverse dial has an embossed ‘clous de Paris’ pattern and it comes on a classic black leather strap.
After 92 years, you might think the Reverso ideas well was in danger of running dry. But nothing in Jaeger Le-Coultre’s recent activity suggests anything of the sort.
Playing the hits would seem to be an eminently sensible strategy.
