WATCHES & WONDERS: Jaeger-LeCoultre go star-gazing with the Stellar Odyssey collection
Fergus NashEditor’s Note: Watches & Wonders is the biggest watch fair of the year, and, with nearly 40 brands presenting, there is a ton of ground to cover. So, for your convenience, we’re offering a quick overview of each brand’s new novelties – touching on each new reference or collection and their headlining points. Stay tuned throughout the week for deeper coverage, some of which will include videos, live pics, and our hands-on perspective. But for now let’s run through each of the new watches – here are the Jaeger-LeCoultre novelties of Watches & Wonders 2022.
Dazzling Star and Rendez-Vous Star
The theme for Jaeger-LeCoultre’s 2022 Watches & Wonders releases is “The Stellar Odyssey”, paying tribute to the centuries-old marriage of astronomy and horology in a most breathtaking way. The Rendez-Vous Star and Dazzling Star watches both make use of a brand new Jaeger-LeCoultre calibre with a never-before-seen complication — the Calibre 734 with a shooting star display. Managing to recreate a chance encounter of a real-life shooting star, the layered sapphire dial will randomly reveal the bold and inspiring star graphic around four to six times per hour, while also being available to summon on command by winding the crown.
The Rendez-Vous Star is an ode to the night sky as seen from Earth, with a hand-painted scene of calming clouds across the starry night sky. A white-gold reference takes on midnight blue shades, and a pink gold version adopts a sepia-like taupe for an even dreamier vista. The Dazzling Star version is slightly more practical with its use of an Arabic numeral section, although it is no less lavishly decorated with a stunning aventurine dial and the option of a diamond-set pink gold bracelet. All of the Rendez-Vous Star and Dazzling Star watches have a diameter of 36mm with short lugs, ensuring that even a watch with this much beauty (and this many diamonds) can be worn by anybody regardless of gender.
| Case Material | 18k Pink Gold / White Gold |
| Case Dimensions | 36mm x 11.11 mm |
| Water-Resistance | 50m |
| Dial | Blue / Taupe / Aventurine |
| Straps | Leather / Diamond-Set Gold Bracelet |
| Movement | Calibre 734 |
| Power Reserve | 70 hours |
| Complications | Hours, minutes, shooting star complication |
| Price | TBA |
Master Hybris Artistica Calibre 945 Galaxia and Atomium
Jaeger-LeCoultre’s Master Hybris Artistica Calibre 945 is as much a display of dominance in celestial timekeeping as it is in watchmaking in general, balancing complexity with aesthetics in a way that captures the science and magic of astronomy. The dials mingle the telling of local time through the dauphine hands with tracking the movement of constellations, as seen from Jaeger-LeCoultre’s home in the Vallée de Joux. The use of a “celestial vault” that shows the constellations makes this possible, in conjunction with the concept of a Cosmotourbillon which circumnavigates the dial once every 23 hours, 56 minutes and 4.1 seconds. This level of precision is necessary, as the measurement of a “sidereal day” as used by astronomers isn’t based on the same 24-hour calculation that represents the Earth’s rotation around the sun.
You can read the zodiac calendar as well as the solar time from the 24-hour chapter ring marked by a golden sun-shaped pointer, as well as chiming the civil time through the inclusion of a minute repeater complication. The two versions of this watch offer more than just differing colour schemes, with the Galaxia model in pink gold and black showing an incredible artisanal display of planets and stars in greyscale, and the Atomium model in white gold representing the link between constellations with a laser-welded lattice of silvered metal above a blue backdrop. Each of the cases are as meticulously finished as the dial in a variety of bead-blasted, polished and brushed surfaces, and both models have their preciousness marked by limited production of only five pieces each.
| Case Material | 18k Pink Gold / White Gold |
| Case Dimensions | 45mm x 16.05 mm |
| Water-Resistance | 50m |
| Dial | Black / Blue |
| Straps | Alligator Leather |
| Movement | Calibre 945 |
| Power Reserve | 40 hours |
| Complications | Hours, minutes, months, 24-hour indicator, Cosmotourbillon with sidereal time, star chart of the northern hemisphere, minute repeater, zodiacal calendar |
| Price | TBA |
Master Grande Tradition
Jaeger-LeCoultre are no stranger to GMT or even World Time watches, and so giving that traditional complication an upgrade was always going to take something very special. The Jaeger-LeCoultre Master Grande Tradition Calibre 948 is both a technical and artisanal masterclass, paying homage to the earth-centric calculations of time across the globe as derived from astronomical precision.
The base of the dial is formed of a blue lacquer applied over a wave guilloché pattern to represent the ocean, while the land of the Northern Hemisphere is built upon a domed skeleton structure to provide extra depth. The “chamlevé” technique of building up enamel layers is incredibly time consuming and delicate, but gives one of the most surreal impressions of an Earth landscape seen on any world time watch. As if that wasn’t enough, the flying tourbillon slowly makes its way around the dial once every 24 hours in a solar tribute.
| Case Material | White Gold |
| Case Dimensions | 43mm x 14.13mm |
| Movement | Calibre 948 |
| Complications | Hours, minutes, world timer, 24-hour indicator |
| Price | $USD |
Atmos Infinite and Hybris Mechanica
Jaeger-LeCoultre have a proud history involving the Atmos clock concept, having brought them into the mainstream in the 1930s as a cutting-edge technology. A large part of the romanticisation of horology in the 21st century is the fact that so much mechanical timekeeping technology has been outdated by quartz and atomic clocks, that the continued pursuit of mechanical perfection represents the human curiosity for what’s truly possible. Nothing sums up that attitude better than Jaeger-LeCoultre’s continued exploration of the Atmos clock, being the only ones to have continually pushed the limits of this esoteric knowledge.
The Atmos Infinite takes the Atmos clock concept and imagines it as a piece of contemporary art, while still maintaining complete functionality. Drawing its power from the slightest temperature changes, it feels like the clock is powered by pure magic, and the Atmos Infinite compounds on that mysticism. The glass case holds the clock in an almost floating suspension, while the plain black and silver metal construction understates the complexity behind the time.
The Atmos Hybris Mechanica is a much grander affair, throwing all reservations away and displaying the relative movements of Earth, the moon and the sun in real time. Looking like something you could easily find on a wizard’s workbench, the Calibre 590 is by far the deepest exploration of Atmos clock technology to date, and has taken more than four years of development to produce. With it, you can also read the month, moonphases, and zodiac calendar.
| Case Material | Glass |
| Case Dimensions | 215mm x 253 mm |
| Movement | Calibre 570 / 590 |
| Complications | Hours, minutes / night & day, month, moon phases, zodiacal calendar |
| Price | $ USD |