‘I believe I have an eye for watches’
Long established as a menswear icon, Benedict Cumberbatch is fast becoming something of a horology connoisseur too, thanks to his relationship with Jaeger-lecoultre.
B‘I honestly couldn’t believe what I was seeing, the artisanal work astonished me; the legacy of skill’
enedict Cumberbatch knows his watches. “The movement of the Duomètre à Sphérotourbillon is just astonishing,” he says, referring to Jaegerlecoultre’s extraordinary timepiece. “It’s so incredibly made that it takes on organic form, almost like a beating heart,” he enthuses, before moving on to talk about the alarm facilities on the brand’s Memovox. It’s a special conversation, because so often the relationship between Big Name Celebrity and a watch house can be somewhat woolly at best. Cumberbatch, however, has always been curious about watches.
“I believe that I have an eye for them, and I love that timepieces exist beyond their immediate function. We ask that they perform one essential task, but the addition of so many other complicated elements as a showcase of pure skill, I find fascinating,” says the 45-year-old actor in the clipped tones that made him so formidable as Sherlock Holmes and Khan in the Star Trek franchise.
His first encounter with Jaeger-lecoultre was on the set of Doctor Strange (2016), in which the titular character played by Cumberbatch boasts a fine line-up of the brand’s watches – one of which, a Master Ultra Thin Perpetual Calendar, becomes pivotal to the plot. “The aesthetic is so elegant and classic that it spoke to his taste,” says Cumberbatch.
It was a visit to the house’s manufacture in the Swiss Vallée de Joux that sparked his curiosity. “I honestly couldn’t believe what I was seeing,” he admits. “The artisanal work astonished me; the legacy of skill, the dexterity of the handcraft. It personalised it for me, because you see the human achievement in how the watches are made, especially now in a world that is increasingly digitised.”
It’s the Memovox that gets the most use out of his collection of four watches (as well as loan pieces like the Reverso Nonantième he’s sporting in the main image) – a keen diver, he uses it during aquatic adventures. Cumberbatch finds the activity meditative. “You have to concentrate on your breathing, and what happens in the beats between, during and after a breath, and finding those still points of calm, control and release when you’re down there,” he says.
His last dive was on the eve of lockdown in New Zealand, while he was there on location for his most recent film The Power of the Dog, the barren plains of South Island standing in for the American Midwest in the Jane Campion production.
“Being in New Zealand when the pandemic took hold was interesting, they went really hard and fast [with quarantine restrictions] and it made me realise how precious and valuable the mundane is,” says Cumberbatch, who spent several months in the country thanks to the halt in filming the movie. “I couldn’t get enough of the expanse, and I was fascinated by the varied topography – it veers from tropical forests to fjords, lush mountains to desert plains. I felt lucky to be in lockdown there.”
Like most of us, Cumberbatch is enjoying being back out in the world, particularly the whirlwind of the London Film Festival, and dressing up in his signature pin-sharp tailoring by his friend, designer Joe Woolfe, who runs Labassa Woolfe.
According to Cumberbatch, his approach to clothes has shifted because of global events and he now chooses to use fashion as a political statement. “I’m trying to break free from that classic English gentleman silhouette and dive into activist fashion, exploring what young designers like Nicholas Daley, Bethany Williams and Steven Stokey-daley are doing,” he explains, referring to a crop of London’s menswear designers who are focused on sustainability and social responsibility. Stokey-daley, for example, uses end-of-line fabrics and Williams works with grassroots charity organisations.
“They are tuned in to the environmental crisis we’re in and see it as their duty to not just produce beautiful clothes, but keep in mind the cost to the environment and the people involved in the production process, says Cumberbatch.
“It is reshaping how we engage with our clothes, making strides in an industry that’s really in need of it,” adds the actor, who unlike a lot of Hollywood stars, is vocal about political causes. “We have all had a realignment and can walk away realising how lucky we are.”