Ninety years ago, Jaeger-LeCoultre created the Reverso, an ingenious solution for polo players who wished to protect the glass of their watches while playing matches. It was to become a classic of 20th-century design. The Maison soon began to introduce new aesthetic variations of the Reverso but no mechanical complications were introduced; the Reverso remained a simple, time-only watch.
Sixty years after the Reverso’s creation, La Grande Maison launch in 1991 the Soixantième, the first Reverso with complications. Neverthless, the Manufacture’s goal was creating six new Reverso models within the decade. From the tourbillon to the minute repeater or the quantième perpetuel, each incorporating the greatest classical complications.
In 2021, nine decades after the Reverso was born, Jaeger-LeCoultre presents the latest episode in this story: the Reverso Tribute Nonantième, which gives a completely new visual expression to an alliance of several classical complications.
The Reverso Tribute Nonantième
The front dial of the Nonantième exudes refinement and elegance. The pink gold case with its signature gadroons frames a silvered, sunray-brushed dial with applied golden indexes and Dauphine hands. In the lower half of the dial, a moonphase display is set within the circle formed by the small seconds counter.
The classically elegant aesthetic of the front dial gives no hint of the surprise concealed on the reverse side of the watch. Flipping the case over reveals an entirely new visual expression of some of watchmaking’s most familiar complications.
The solid pink-gold caseback is dominated by two round apertures of different sizes, arranged like a figure-eight and encircled by gadroons that echo the rectilinear gadroons on the upper and lower edges of the case. The small upper aperture displays a semi-jumping digital hour indication. Seen for the first time in a Reverso, this complication recalls digital displays developed by the Manufacture for wristwatches in the 1930s.
