The following article was produced in partnership with Jaeger-LeCoultre.
Jaeger-LeCoultre, one of the world’s most impressive watchmakers, has some exciting news for anyone in Melbourne between Monday 21st November and Sunday 4th December. The Swiss watchmaker will be hosting an exclusive holiday season pop-up event at Chadstone, giving watch aficionados the chance to get hands-on with the iconic Reverso.
Why the Reverso specifically? That’s because Jaeger-LeCoultre has recently collaborated with Spanish-born, New York-based lettering artist, Alex Trochut, to create a bold new font that is available for engraving on the Reverso’s caseback.
Jaeger-LeCoultre’s collaboration with Alex comes as part of its ‘Made of Makers’ programme, which sees La Grande Maison partnering with a number of artists outside of watchmaking, to expertly demonstrate how the worlds of horology and art can co-exist with one another.
Jaeger-LeCoultre’s collaboration introduces a new alphabet – called the 1931 Alphabet – that is destined to become an additional signature of the brand, and one that provides “a strongly modern addition to the Maison’s visual identity.”
The Reverso, for the uninitiated, is one of the most enduring watches of our time. Iconic and innovative, it could just be the ultimate daily wearer for the 21st-century man.
Chief among the Reverso’s appeal isn’t just its rotating case design, but its unmistakable Art Deco design. It’s this Art Deco inspiration that proved to be a natural fit for a man of Alex’s talents. He said of his collaboration with Jaeger-LeCoultre, “As I started creating the designs, a concept emerged that would unify Art Deco and Jaeger-LeCoultre’s craft of watchmaking.”
“The letters evoked some sort of mechanism, full of different modular parts that work together to create a whole. I wanted these letters to feel physical and expose their intricate parts equally as functional and decorative, giving the sense of a moving machine.”
The lettering Alex created for his collaboration with JLC is decidedly modern yet can easily be compared with the Art Deco movement of the 1920s and 30s. When used for engraving on the Reverso caseback, Alex’s lettering will be two-dimensional, but when displayed across digital media, it occupies a three-dimensional space.
No matter which way you view it, the same expressive characteristics shine through, and you can get to work personalising your own Reverso now via Jaeger-LeCoultre’s dedicated online engraving tool.
Jaeger-LeCoultre’s Chadstone pop-up can be found just a short walk from the KENNEDY Boutique in the forecourt, located at Ground Level of the Chadstone Shopping Centre.
Anyone who visits will not only be able to view the iconic Reverso collection but will walk away with an exclusive Maison gift.