Simple Elegance, Complex Beauty: The Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso As A Vehicle For Complications

The Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso, odd as it may sound, started out as a sports watch. The origin story of the Reverso is well known. The original design for the watch came about thanks to a request made by British polo players in the early 1930s, for a watch which could withstand the rigors of play without running the risk of the crystal being cracked. The solution was in retrospect obvious, and to a certain extent you would be forgiven for wondering why someone didn’t think of it earlier given the fact that World War I had made the problem of protecting watch crystals an urgent one, but it was an ingenious answer nonetheless: construct a watch with a reversible case, in which the dial side could at will, be concealed.

The Reverso for much of its history was not a watch used for complicated watches, and, as with the idea for the watch itself, it might seem strange that complicated Reversos did not start to be produced at JLC until sixty years after the first models were introduced in 1931. Partly this has to do with the overwhelming preference in the watch market, after World War II, for round case shapes, but I think it also has to do with the fact that as a simple time only watch – with or without small seconds – the Reverso has a kind of aesthetic self-sufficiency which seems to need no further elaboration from either an aesthetic or a mechanical standpoint. Certainly, the back of the case was an obvious place for decorative enhancements and there is a long history of Reverso watches with everything from simple engravings of the owner’s initials, to enamel miniature paintings of both great technical excellence and great beauty. But a complicated Reverso had to wait until 1991 to be introduced. By then, the post-Quartz Crisis mechanical renaissance had proven it was not just a flash in the pan, and the long unexplored potential of the Reverso for complicated watchmaking began to be realized.

To understand why the Reverso is such a suitable vehicle for complicated watchmaking, we can look at some of the simpler models – including the simplest of all in the current catalog, the Reverso Tribute Monoface.

The Tribute Monoface is the purest expression of the Reverso design now made; the case back is undecorated (it can be engraved if the owner wishes, of course, but I think there is something to be said for an unadorned and unengraved caseback; it somehow feels like a very direct connection to the practical problem the Reverso was originally designed to solve. At a recent event, a Tribute Monoface owner told me that he had been struggling with exactly this problem for many years and had finally found a design he liked for an engraving, but he was hesitant to actually pull the trigger because the unmarked caseback was so compelling, as an exercise in horological minimalism which suits the Deco-era design of the Reverso very well.

The first and probably most obvious reason that the Reverso is an excellent candidate for complications is the reversible case. This would not have been something likely to have occurred in the earlier part of the Reverso’s history as it would have gone against the whole point of the reversible case, which was to protect the dial from damage. During the period between the 1940s to early 1970s when the Reverso was out of production there was of course no particular reason to explore designs for complicated Reversos and when production was fully revived for the first time, in the 1980s, it became clear given the interest among collectors for unusual and historically important watches in general, and for complications in particular, that using the Reverso for complications was plausible and potentially very attractive in a way that it would not have been to a polo player in the 1930s.

The caseback can be used for the display of additional information and additional complications, of course, but the geometry of the Reverso is also inherently friendly to complicated watchmaking, at least if approached from a certain perspective. The height to width ratio of Reverso cases has changed slightly over the years, depending on the model and the years of production, but in general the ratio is close to the famous Golden Ratio. Defining the Golden Ratio is a little abstract, but simple. Imagine a line divided into two segments, one longer than the other. Those two segments are in the Golden Ratio if the larger segment is in the same ratio to the whole line, as it is to the smaller segment. The number is associated with the equally famous Fibonacci sequence of numbers and if you take a Golden Rectangle and begin subdividing it into proportionately smaller rectangles, the product is an internal spiral whose structure is reflected in many natural phenomena.

This is all by way of saying that the proportions of the Reverso are inherently harmonious, and that the height to width ratios of the cases lend themselves to a harmonious subdivision. Unlike a circular watch dial, where the subdials for complications can seem both cluttered and static, the Reverso’s case can be subdivided in a number of ways which preserve the inherent harmony of the case design. Both simple complications based on the Reverso, as well as some extremely advanced supercomplicated watches, have benefited from the Reverso’s unique synergy of case proportions and design.

The Reverso Tribute Duoface Calendar is one example of the many possibilities the Reverso offers in implementing complications.

This is probably one of the best use cases for complications in the Reverso family, from both a design and from a practicality standpoint. Showing two time zones on each side of the case is a very natural extension of the basic design, and it’s also a step away from the reason for the reversible case as it was conceived of in 1931, but it’s a step in a logical direction. The Golden Ratio proportions of the case are perfectly suited to the composition as well, forming a natural frame for the moonphase, day, date, and month on the home time side, and for the time and day/night indicator on the local time side. Obviously both of these complications are perfectly at home in round cases as well, but the reversible case and rectangular dials lend a kind of high modernist dignity.

Looking back for a moment to the 1990s, we can see a different sort of experience provided by one of my favorite Reversos and one of my favorite tourbillons, which is the 1993 Reverso Tourbillon. Jaeger-LeCoultre had obviously been making tourbillons before – very high grade pocket watches, for the observatory precision competitions – this was not only the first Reverso tourbillon, but also the first wristwatch tourbillon that JLC had ever made.

The Reverso Tourbillon is a fantastically beautiful watch in general, both recto and verso – the dial side is handsomely done, decorated with two different guilloché patterns, and with a large subdial for the small seconds hand reminiscent of the so-called doctor’s watches from the Deco era, which often had rectangular cases and large small seconds subdials to make it easier to check a patient’s heart rate. The back, though, showcases the Jaeger-LeCoultre caliber 828, which is one of the most exquisite of all modern tourbillon calibers. The symmetry of the bridges and of the tourbillon and its main driving wheel is in contrast to the large arc for the power reserve indication, which has been deliberately designed to be a visually integrated part of the overall composition, with the engraved sector showing the hours of running time remaining, also functioning as the cock for the tourbillon driving wheel.

Normally, a tourbillon in a wristwatch is visible through an aperture in the dial or less frequently, only through a display back. Traditionally watchmakers did not cut holes in the dial to make the tourbillon visible, as it was considered a technical feature, and many classically minded enthusiasts like the idea of a discreet tourbillon, but still want to be able to see it in action. With the Reverso Tourbillon you can have it both ways, and the design and layout of the movement really takes advantage of the case shape as well.

Using both sides of the case was a major innovation for the Reverso in the early 1990s, and in 2006, Jaeger-LeCoultre produced a watch which took the idea even further. The Reverso Grande Complication à Triptyque was launched in 2006 during a period when competition was fierce to produce original takes on classic complications, and the Reverso Grande Complication à Triptyque took advantage of the Reverso’s unique design in a way that hadn’t been done before.

The innovation that Jaeger-LeCoultre came up with for the Reverso Grande Complication à Triptyque was to used the exposed face of the carrier itself as a vehicle for displaying information. The front of the watch shows civil time and the power reserve, with a large aperture for the tourbillon; the watch also used JLC’s Ellipse Isometer escapement, a modern variation on the detent escapement. On the reverse side of the case, there’s a star chart showing the stars visible above the horizon, a sidereal time indicator, an Equation of Time indicator, a zodiac ring, and indications for sunrise and sunset.

This would all be remarkable enough on its own, but the carrier shows even more information: it’s a full perpetual calendar with moonphase. Every day at midnight, a pin in the case presses through a hole in the carrier, advancing all the perpetual calendar indications instantly. The Reverso Grande Complication à Triptyque takes full advantage of every surface of the case and carrier, but it also, as with other complicated Reversos, uses the case proportions to create dynamic visual effects, including the oversized aperture for the tourbillon, which cuts into the gadroons on the lower edge of the case.

Complicated Reversos underscore the unique features of the Reverso, both as a piece of engineering and as a piece of design, but the simple Reversos have all the visual harmony and tactile interest of the complicated pieces as well. In its most complex forms, the Reverso is a powerful demonstration of the potential to be found in breaking the tyranny of the round case and adding a tactile element to the experience of a wristwatch, but in its simplest forms, the Reverso is a very pure and equally interesting manifestation of the enduring and inherent strength of a design that’s outlived the Deco era to become a classic in its own right.

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