Last year, Jerome Lambert was named CEO of the Swiss watchmaker Jaeger-LeCoultre for the second time. He completed his first tenure at the company in 2013; between then and now, he led Montblanc, A. Lange & Söhne, as well as the Richemont group itself. Coming back to the ‘watchmaker of watchmakers’, as Jaeger-LeCoultre is sometimes known, is an exercise for him in both familiarity and change. He compares it to a family gathering. “You see people who have changed, and you know that you have changed. So, you have to adapt to that new context. There are new members in the family. It’s quite exciting,” Lambert explains.
There is one particular family member that has not changed much—the Reverso, Jaeger-LeCoultre’s most iconic watch. At Watches & Wonders 2025, which marks the first time Lambert has attended the trade show with Jaeger-LeCoultre, the Reverso was the only collection to feature. The theme of the brand’s booth was 1931 Polo Club, a nod to the Reverso’s year and circumstances of origin—as a timepiece created for British officers stationed in India that could withstand the rigours of polo matches. The solution was to create a mechanism that allowed the entire watch to be flipped over, to protect the dial from impact. It was, thus, the world’s first sports watch.
It is not considered a sports watch any longer. These days, the Reverso’s Art Deco-derived, rectangular aesthetic is very much on the dressy side of things, and its reversing mechanism is less for protection and more to showcase watchmaking and artistry. It is 94 years old but still a key part of Jaeger-LeCoultre’s offerings—and still has its fans. “It’s a product that has a very strong aesthetic signature—an intrinsic, strong signature. And we have been able to follow and respect that over time,” Lambert says. “It is a watch that has been capable of telling a lot of different stories. It is capable of inventing and re-inventing itself in a way that the emotion of a first time is always possible with the Reverso.”
This year’s launches alone are proof of that. Nine new models across some 15 references were introduced, covering the gamut of genres. Jaeger-LeCoultre has long been renowned for its mechanical expertise—the maison has created more than 1,200 movements in its lifetime, with 50 of them destined for the Reverso and shaped to match—and this year is no exception. The technical releases were headed by the Reverso Hybris Artistica Calibre 179, which features the Gyrotourbillon, the brand’s signature multi-axis tourbillon, at 6 o’clock. It is a Duoface movement, which means that each side of the watch has its own dial and can be set to different time zones.
There were artistic releases, too. A quartet of Reverso Tribute Enamel timepieces pay homage to the Persian epic poem Shahnameh, leveraging the back of the Monoface-style Reverso as a tiny canvas for miniature enamel painting. Rendered in stunning detail and vivid colour, enamel expertise is just one of the more than 180 watchmaking crafts that Jaeger-LeCoultre sustains at its manufacture in Le Sentier, a site it has occupied since the brand’s founding in 1833.
But it was not one of these timepieces that ended up being the show-stealer. Nor was it the Reverso Tribute Minute Repeater, a chiming watch with a new movement; nor the Reverso Tribute Nonantieme ‘Enamel’, which has one side boasting a digital display, along with lacquer and enamel for a night sky, and pink gold stars.
It was something simpler, and much more unassuming: the Reverso Tribute Monoface Small Seconds in pink gold (RM172,000). The reverse side is blank, though, and ready for customisation should it be desired. In terms of function, it has just its three hands, with one of them belonging to a small seconds indicator. The dial is a colour match to the case material, but a textural contrast, thanks to the fine-grained finish. And, in what turned out to be an inspired choice, the strap is a Milanese link bracelet, also in pink gold, consisting of fine metal links that come together to create something smooth and supple. This timepiece is, as such, a triumph of juxtapositions—monochrome in hue but varied in texture, combining polish, grain, and weave; casual but also effortlessly dressed-up; shiny and luxe, but also understated and subtle; tapping strongly into early 20th-century style glamour, but also timeless; it is exactly the Reverso as it has always been, but also a refreshing release for the 21st century. It was the most talked-about watch from Jaeger-LeCoultre during Watches & Wonders 2025.
To Lambert, it was a bit of a surprise, though a welcome one. “It’s a watch that has discovered its strengths [through its] constraints,” he explains. “We wanted a slim watch [that is] elegant. We wanted a very thin and flexible bracelet. We wanted to have, as in the Jaeger-LeCoultre of the 1930s and 1940s, that game between the textures and materials.”
It marks a notable trend in watch collectors, wherein the most excitement seems to be generated around simple but well-executed expressions with a pronounced respect for the classics. “You have a kind of interest in purity, the simplicity of a watch that has a vintage signature. In a world that is very animated, where something happens every two seconds, [you can have] the clarity of the hour, minute, and second,” Lambert suggests. It is something that bodes well for Jaeger-LeCoultre, as it has a portfolio of purity, tradition, and expertise that few others can match. “But it won’t be sufficient to be only the watchmaker of watchmakers,” Lambert says. “It’s also very important to be creative, [to make] something that finds a way to create new emotions.”
