THE FOURTH DIMENSION
Jaeger-LeCoultre’s new $1.6 million four-sided Reverso is the concept car of the watchmaking world, the brand’s chief executive Catherine Renier tells Alex Doak
Four-faced marvels of handcra ed haute horlogerie may not feel attuned to the zeitgeist – especially when you notice the €1.35 million ($1.6m) price tag, and a waiting list of only 10 especially un-pandemic-affected individuals. But when it’s at the hands of a Swiss powerhouse such as Jaeger-LeCoultre, immune to the ups and downs of history, let alone the likelihood of a global crisis six years down the line (that’s how long it took to develop), we can instead choose to embrace the exuberant genius of the Reverso Hybris Mechanica Calibre 185 Quadriptyque.
It could even be the shot of extravagance we all need, if not one we can afford: a double-faced watch that chimes the time with beguiling melody and keeps the correct date whatever Groundhog Day you happen to be in; a reversible watch flipping about a “cradle” with its own two sides displaying the meandering waltz of the Earth, Moon and Sun, so you’ll never miss an eclipse again.
“Being six years in the making, this watch didn’t choose the time it came to fruition,” says JaegerLeCoultre’s chief executive Catherine Renier. “It’s only 10 pieces, so are we likely to find 10 collectors who want to invest in such a thing, whatever the situation? Well, probably, yes.
“But,” she continues with characteristic measure, “the Quadriptyque is not only our most complex, but the crème de la crème of Jaeger-LeCoultre. It’s the best of us, and what spurs us on every day to innovate; it helps us get better with everything we make – not just the high complications. It’s like a concept car. The R&D is coming to bear on our entire collection.”
It might be hard to see how the Quadriptyque’s world-first representation of all three anomalistic, synodic and draconic lunar cycles could possibly benefit the brand’s next-generation Polaris sports watches. But in fairness, Renier is talking about the underlying trickle-down technology, which would require an apprenticeship in watchmaking to appreciate – or at the very least a tour of JaegerLeCoultre’s sprawling manufacturing site, still perched on the shores of Lac de Joux, high in the Jura Mountains, precisely where Antoine LeCoultre set up shop in 1833.
“The Reverso itself has embodied so many innovations since 1931,” Renier explains of her employer’s illustrious poster boy, whose reversible Art Deco case was conceived on the polo pitches of the British Raj as a means of protecting the watch’s crystal dial from flailing mallets. “It quickly became a fashion icon, one of the first unisex wristwatches.”
As Renier points out, Jaeger-LeCoultre’s ingenious flipping mechanism soon presented many more opportunities than simply hiding the delicate face – it’s almost become a plaything, and not just through engraving or enamel-decorating the caseback. “In the 1990s, Reverso became a watch of complications,” Renier says. “The Duoface of 1994 introduced a second dial in its entirety, expressing a choice of different personalities.”
By expanding on 2006’s seemingly ultimate evolution, the Triptyque, by a whole third of dial inventory, the Quadriptyque isn’t only a recordbreaker for sheer surface area. In revisiting that precrash, mid-noughties era of horological hedonism, this new “supercomplication” shows how the genre should be done in 2021.
Not democratically, of course. That’s impossible. Rather, made for a reason beyond simply sandwiching and smooshing as much as possible into two dials max. Simply put: its 11 functions have been chosen as the most poetic and harmonious, utilising the four-dial framework not as gimmick, but as an opportunity to give everything the breathing space it deserves. All within the confines of a 51mm x 31mm x 15mm whitegold box, tucked beneath your sleeve. Quite a baggy sleeve, admittedly.
Immediately dial side, you have the tourbillon assembly, tumbling the ticking balance in a mesmerising whir while surrounded by a segmented, always-right perpetual calendar. Reverse the case and you’re met with a hand-engraved clous de Paris pattern, open-worked to reveal the minute repeater mechanism: two rectangular gongs that attach directly to the sapphire crystal to exploit the material’s resonance, their square cross-section maximising contact with the hammers as they strike out the hours, then the quarters, followed by the remaining minutes.
And then, the horological meteor shower: for the first time in mechanical horology, JaegerLeCoultre’s cocktail of lunar indication, allowing the determination of eclipse events (both solar and lunar) and rare lunar phenomena such as supermoons, despite the erratic elliptical orbits of all three concerned parties.
How? Every night, at midnight, a pin pokes out of the main case to nudge the wafer-thin interlocking wheels embedded in the cradle.
“This is the essence of having nurtured 180 separate skills beneath a single roof, over 180 years and more,” Renier maintains.
And long may such moonshots continue, regardless of global events.
En route to a swanky hotel on Palm Jumeirah to meet with jewellery designer Caroline Gaspard, a bright green Lamborghini screams past me, overtaking four cars in one very noisy swoop. “That was me. I was driving,” Gaspard tells me later, with a laugh. The founder and creative director of Akillis is not your typical jeweller. She’s a thrill seeker who loves boxing, driving supercars and wearing her diamonds with leather jackets.
We meet during one of Gaspard’s recent visits to Dubai, and it quickly becomes apparent that all these sides of her personality are reflected in her jewellery brand. “I am a little bit like a boy, in that I love adrenalin,” she explains. “But I am also a woman. I like to get dressed up, I like to put make-up on. And I think there is a duality in every person. Our motto is: ‘Be your uniqueness.’”
Having founded Akillis in 2007 at the age of 25, Gaspard is a rebel by nature, but shrewd enough to know this is her greatest asset. While her designs shimmer with jewels, the shapes and forms are uniquely hers, drawing on ideas such as steel traps, bullets and even Maori tattoos. With its expensive irreverence, Akillis is not your standard jewellery fare.
Devoid of the usual floral motifs, Gaspard’s bold and starkly graphic shapes instead feel androgynous, and almost alien, so it is no surprise to learn that men have been buying her creations almost since the beginning. To decode the appeal of her unique designs, Gaspard says we need only look to history. “It was a way to show power. Kings and queens wore jewellery – something magnificent – to show power and beauty.”
And as for men increasingly returning to wearing jewellery, she believes it denotes the natural rebellion of a new generation. “Now, older generations might think jewellery is effeminate, but this younger generation thinks it’s OK. They say: ‘Whatever you think? I don’t care.’”
While men’s jewellery is a cornerstone of the brand (“we sell half men’s, half women’s, so it’s huge for us”), Gaspard is adamant that she has never set out to design pieces with either gender in mind. “When I create a collection, I create one design and I do some variations. For example, the black matte titanium, with half black diamonds? This is naturally for men. But I refuse to do jewels only for men or only for women. This is global design and there are some masculine and some feminine pieces.”
For convenience, the company’s website is divided into categories for men, women and even children, but this is simply to make it more user friendly, Gaspard says. “If you search by collection, there is no gender. That’s how we balance it. We are talking about a fourth category, genderless, but I am not sure if even the European market is ready just yet.”
Undeniably proud of the brand’s achievements, Gaspard highlights another innovative approach. “We were the first ones to do titanium with diamonds. We had the know-how.”
One of the most in-demand materials, titanium is prized for its unrivalled strength to lightness ratio, meaning it is normally found in jet engines, spacecra and military equipment. Ever the disruptor, Gaspard has covered her titanium with diamonds.
“Titanium is very hard, and very hard to work with, so to get a beautiful diamond encrustation, this is the worst material to work with. We had to test and test, and we are the first ones to make a series with titanium. The good thing about it is that the volume can be big, and it is light. And it’s cool, because you don’t feel it. Men don’t like to be annoyed with wearing lots of bracelets.”
Akillis may be a fraction of the size of the big brands that inhabit the fabled Place Vendôme in Paris, but Gaspard has her own factory in Lyon, where all the brand’s pieces are handmade.
“I bought it at the beginning because I wanted everyone to know that we are good quality and are ‘made in France’. French know-how is very important. It is the basis of everything. Sometimes I see jewellery [made by others] where the encrustation of diamonds looks like it has been made by feet. I can see it one metre from the window, and I am asking, what did they do?” she says.
“So quality, I am crazy about. I do not compromise, and it must be more than perfect. At the workshop, they are all nervous when I arrive.”
The quality of the work is so high that Gaspard not only produces her own collections, but also creations for some of the biggest names in the industry. “I have 320 workers producing jewels for 12 other brands, including Place Vendôme brands. But they don’t like me talking about that,” Gaspard quips.
As the owner of the company, she is her own muse, and savours the freedom to follow her instincts. “I create for me, and when I do this, it’s always better than if I create for somebody. If I try to go too commercial, I don’t like it. We are independent. I have total freedom and this is the best.”
While she (and her husband) wear all her designs, a few clearly hold a special place. One is from the
Heartbeat collection, featuring the jagged line of a heart rate monitor. Covered in diamonds and precious stones, the shape was inspired by the stones themselves “because when I saw the stones, my heart stopped”, she says. “Cabochon Paraiba tourmaline stones are from Brazil, and the colour is like the Bahama sea. Blue amazing sea.”
The arrival of Covid-19 forced a rethinking of timelines and a reshuffling of priorities at Akillis. Case in point, the company has brought forward the launch of its own shoppable website. Already live, the site is only available in Europe, so as not to take business away from platforms that have been so supportive of her, such as Ounass in the UAE. Her reasoning is simple. “I am very faithful and when I find good people, I stay with them. They know how to have a commercial website and are the experts, whereas we are just starting. I am very happy.”
While many Akillis pieces are made in the monochrome palette of white gold and black diamondlike carbon, the high jewellery collections are ablaze with colour. With one set created a year, it is a chance to show the brand’s repertoire of expertise.
For the company’s 10th anniversary, Gaspard designed a necklace, bracelet and earrings set called Guarani, using Paraiba tourmalines from Mozambique in dégradé aqua blue. With its bold, architectural lines, the necklace is reticulated to move with the wearer, making it strikingly modern and a technical masterpiece. Clearly delighted with the end result, Gaspard has been inspired to bring more colour to market in her 2021 ranges.
“I have a very beautiful collection of cocktail earrings and rings – it’s called Cruella, because it is very Cruella de Vil. I love it, because colour makes you happy,” she says.
Another debut for 2021 is Gaspard’s recent collaboration with French fashion company Jitrois, which splashed the Akillis Tattoo pattern across leather jackets and trousers. With the shapes raised on the surface like sacred scars, it carries a darkly Gothic, rock ‘n’ roll edge. Always her own muse, Gaspard even stars in the campaign.
If 2021 is being tackled with renewed energy, it comes off the back of a difficult 2020, great chunks of which were spent in French lockdowns. Although grateful for the time spent with her family, she admits even her upbeat nature struggled with the isolation.
“I am a very positive person; I enjoy life, but even I started to be depressed, because all the pleasures of life were suddenly cancelled,” says Gaspard.
“But I think Covid was useful because we stopped a while and we took a breath. Before, I used to have eight meetings every day. Now, it’s not more than two.”
A businesswoman, mother and wife, Gaspard’s inner rebel is never far from the surface. She admits that she enjoys seeing the shock on people’s faces as a woman climbs out of the driving seat of an expensive supercar, as it is important to constantly challenge and subvert preconceptions.
“One time at [watch and jewellery fair] Baselworld, someone said to me that they thought the designer of Akillis was a man,” Gaspard concludes. “This is the best compliment I can have.”