21 March 2016

Jaeger-LeCoultre’s Reverso is 85 years old, and the company is marking the occasion with a rich collection of watches that just tell the time and others with complications—as in this case. The Reverso Tribute Calendar is in fact a Duoface model (an exclusive invention of the manufacturer), i.e. it has two different dials that display a range of information provided by a single mechanical movement. The hand-wound caliber, obviously designed and constructed “in house,” has on one side a complete calendar, showing the day of the week and the month in two small windows, while the date is indicated with a small hand and shown along with the phases of the moon in a subdial; and on the other, instead of the traditional back, it has a second time-zone dial and a day-and-night indicator. The iconic reversible case—devised in 1931 for British officers in India, who wanted a watch able to stand up to the more frantic stages of polo games—is made of pink gold, while the dual dial has a frosted surface on the front and a Clou de Paris pattern on the back. Impeccable in its decoration and its finish, as is traditional for this Grande Maison, it is a watch for true connoisseurs.