Introduced in 1931, Jaeger-LeCoultre's Reverso Flip Watch is one of the iconic watches of watchmaking. Originally designed for polo players tired of breaking watch glass, Reverso offers an ingenious solution in the form of a rotating protective case. With its sleek Art Deco personality and two faces, the Reverso Flip Watch lives up to its original mission as a sports watch and reappears this year with chronographs, retrograde minutes and second time displays. The Reverso Tribute chronograph features a new in-house calibre 860 and a rose gold and stainless steel case, inspired by the first Reverso chronograph from 1996.
1996 REVERSO CHRONOGRAPHE RETROGRADE
On the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the Reverso watch in 1991, the company implemented an ambitious plan to launch six complex Reverso watches within ten years. The timing of these launches is a clear signal that the destructive avalanche of cheap quartz movements has not diminished the potential to start building classic watchmaking complications again. After four years in the making, the Reverso Chronographe Retrograde was launched in 1996. It was not only JLC's first profiled chronograph movement with a rectangular case, but also the first hand-wound one-piece chronograph era developed from scratch on a post-quartz watch, even beating A. Lange & Söhne to the finish line with its L951.1.
REVERSO TRIBUTE flips the chronograph
The rectangular case is made of 18k rose gold or stainless steel and measures 49.4 mm long, 29.9 mm wide and 11.14 mm thick. The entire case has been polished to showcase the iconic decorative motif – the horizontally engraved lines at both ends of the case – highlighting its elegant and streamlined Art Deco origins. Compared to its venerable 1996 predecessors, the buttons and crown on the right side of the case are less noticeable, but are better integrated, and both dials have been completely redesigned.
The main dial masks the complexity of its movement and presents a wonderfully tranquil sunray brushed background. The grey dial in stainless steel is made using the innovative ADL (Atomic Layer Deposition) process with an ultra-thin layer of titanium oxide, while the pure black dial contrasts elegantly with the warm rose gold case. The baton markings on the iconic chemin de fer (railway) minute track are indicated by elegant Dauphine hands.
Turn the watch over to reveal a more complex skeletonized dial, revealing the chronograph device. Under the bridge with Geneva corrugated decoration, you can admire the column wheels, gear train and balance wheel. Echoing the front dial, there are also batons-like markings on the railway minute track on the back dial, as if suspended above the movement.
To see the elapsed time interval, there is a large chronograph second display on the central ring and a 30-minute accumulator on the arc at the 6 o'clock position; Both are singled out by black tracks, framed by precision gold tracks and indicated by blued steel hands. To complicate matters further, the chronograph's 30-minute counter is retrograde, with its blue hands jumping back to zero in less than 1/8 of a second.
Caliber 860
Inspired by such a venerable ancestor, the new calibre 860 is a fully integrated, hand-wound chronograph movement designed, produced and assembled by JLC in Vallée de Jou. As with its predecessor, the challenge was to place the round chronograph in a rectangular case and maintain legibility. The profiled rectangular movement designed to match the case is a column wheel chronograph with a horizontal clutch. The horizontal clutch was chosen instead of the vertical one in order to keep the thickness of the movement to a minimum - only 12 mm.
In order to display hours and minutes on the front and back dials, the movement must power two sets of hands moving in opposite directions. With 300 components and a 52-hour power reserve to activate the dual-time function, as well as a fuel-guzzling chronograph and retrograde display, the calibre 860 is a true feat of miniature engineering.
Returning to Reverso's original connection to the world of polo, the watch comes with two straps, one canvas and calfskin and the other full leather, made by the famous Argentine manufacturer of polo boots, Casa Fagliano.