The Voice Of Time

Absolute mastery over every category of striking watches has earned Jaeger-LeCoultre this euphonious epithet: The Sound Maker.

- Celine Yap

Located deep within the Swiss Jura mountains, specifically a small town called Le Sentier, the Jaeger-LeCoultre manufacture is perpetually enveloped in silence. But it’s a good silence. The kind you need when you’re taking in panoramic views of snow-capped mountains, or when you’re trekking through the valley’s vast spruce forests, or meditating on the banks of the nearby Lake de Joux.

Or even, perhaps, when you’re listening to the chimes of a minute repeater. Transforming time from a concept to a melody, this extraordinary grand complication embodies not only tradition, but also innovation. As CEO Catherine Rénier tells us, “the duty of the maison is to always go forward and bring novelty to chiming watches”. If the inventions in recent years are anything to go by, the grande maison has definitely done its predecessors proud.

From extra-loud minute repeaters to its first grande sonnerie in a wristwatch; from completely new designs for the hammers and gongs to brilliant solutions for musicality, Jaeger-LeCoultre leaves no stone unturned. Describing the manufacture’s relationship with sound as a constant quest, Rénier emphasises that Jaeger-LeCoultre is always finding ways to innovate and bring something new to its calibres. It is also enduringly committed to improving on the quality and performance of its minute repeaters.