Jaeger-LeCoultre reveals new Master Control Chronometre at Watches and Wonders

Jaeger-LeCoultre has a lot to shout about at this year’s Watches and Wonders event in Geneva, from a stunning new Reverso collection, to the wonderfully complex Master Hybris Mechanica Minute Repeater Tourbillon.

But, while those watches exist in a truly rarified atmosphere – the four models of Reverso are limited to 10 examples each – Jaeger-LeCoultre also announced the new Master Control Chronometre Perpetual Calendar.

A 39mm stainless steel sports watch, it boasts a slender 9.2mm case thickness, despite packing a mechanism with day, date, month, year and moon phase complications.

Powered by the ultra-thin Manufacture Calibre 868 automatic mechanical movement – which has 70 hours of power reserve – the watch is a perfect demonstration of how an incredibly complex mechanical movement can serve up a lot of information on a surprisingly clean dial.

It’s available in stainless steel with a blue-grey dial, as pictured above, and pink gold with a bronze-toned sun ray dial, each with complementary hands and markers that bring a great deal of cohesion to the design.

Given how different the two watches look, despite sharing the exact same dimensions and dial layout, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if serious collectors picked up both variants, such is the breadth of outfits and occasions they’d suit.

Both have a sapphire crystal back for viewing the movement within – a good job, given just how special this the calibre 868 is. Despite being just 4.72mm thick, it’s sophisticated enough to keep accurate time, day, date, month and year (as well as moon phase), even accounting for different month lengths and leap years. In fact, as long as it’s kept wound (or reset correctly when stopped), it shouldn’t need adjusting until the start of the next century, in the year 2100.

The steel model is priced at £41,000 in the UK and available for pre-order now. The pink gold variant is also open for pre-order, but is price-on-request in the UK. In Europe it’s priced at €72,500.

Also new from the Master Control collection is the Chronometre Date, above, which has a 38mm case available in the same steel and pink gold colours as the Perpetual Calendar, but with a far simpler automatic movement that caters only for time and date. It’s priced at £12,700 in steel and £47,000 in 18ct pink gold.

These are joined by the Chronometre Date Power Reserve, which also uses the same 39mm steel case and blue-grey dial, but adds a sub-dial for the date (instead of a traditional window), and a second sub-dial that acts as a power reserve dial for the Calibre 738 movement’s 70 hours of life. This model is £15,300 and also available to pre-order now.