To mark the launch of its new Polaris Perpetual Calendar watch, Jaeger-LeCoultre has created a visually captivating video called In Perpetual Motion. Starring Benedict Cumberbatch, a long-time friend of the Maison, it focuses on the notion of time and its relationship to three natural environments: lakes, forests and the heavens.

In the video, Benedict is immersed in each of these environments in turn, wearing the new Polaris Perpetual Calendar, as he narrates an evocative text that reflects on concepts of perpetual movement and action – the eternal cycles and ever-changing sense of time, as expressed by the natural world.

Woven throughout, glimpses of different celestial bodies remind us that our sense of passing time, as well as its measurement by calendars, clocks and watches, is governed by the rhythms of the cosmos and the regular cycles of astronomical phenomena – a subtle link to Jaeger-LeCoultre’s Stellar Odyssey.

Keeping Perpetual Time

In 2022, Jaeger-LeCoultre has enriched its sporty-chic Polaris line with a perpetual calendar for the first time. Elegant and visually striking, the dial of the Polaris Perpetual Calendar is lacquered in a deep gradient-blue colour, taking its aesthetic cues from the Polaris Mariner Memovox with assertive hour indexes, skeletonised hands and slightly recessed subdials for the calendar displays.

With an emphasis on balance and legibility, the date, day and month indications are balanced by a moon-phase display at 6 o’clock – a pleasing reminder that calendars had their origins in astronomical phenomena.

For Benedict Cumberbatch, the new Jaeger-LeCoultre Polaris Perpetual Calendar may be the ideal timepiece: “The world is moving very fast and our involvement with it is constantly changing, from one day to the next,” he explains. “Whether I’m running or reading or sitting still and contemplating the world, the Polaris Perpetual Calendar really is a watch that fits in with all scenarios and will give me the essential information I need every day.”

Thanks to the new in-house automatic movement, Jaeger-LeCoultre Calibre 868AA, the classical Northern Hemisphere moon-phase display is complemented by a retrograde display of moon phases in the Southern Hemisphere. Enhancing the practical utility of the Polaris Perpetual Calendar, the new movement has an extended power reserve, offering 70 hours of autonomy.

To complement the elegant and visually striking dial, the 42mm case is available in a choice of steel or pink gold, and features a ‘rapid-change’ attachment for the interchangeable straps. In addition to two straps offered with each watch – rubber and alligator with the pink gold model; rubber and a steel bracelet with the steel model – a range of calf leather straps enables wearers to easily personalise the watch and adapt it for every daily adventure.

ABOUT THE STELLAR ODYSSEY

In 2022 Jaeger-LeCoultre pays homage to the astronomical phenomena that lie at the very origin of how mankind measures time. Since the earliest days of the Manufacture, astronomical functions have played a major role in Jaeger-LeCoultre’s portfolio of complicated timepieces – ranging from simple forms of moon phase display to highly complex perpetual calendars, equation of time, sky charts, and the draconic and anomalistic lunar cycles. Mastering all three measures of time – solar, lunar and sidereal – the watchmakers of La Grande Maison have perpetually innovated to create the most advanced and precise mechanisms that represent or even predict celestial phenomena. This year, Jaeger-LeCoultre embarks on a Stellar Odyssey with an immersive exhibition and a series of themed events that will embrace inspirational collaborations with a visual artist and a mixologist, and a fascinating programme of celestially-themed Discovery Workshops at Atelier d’Antoine. The Stellar Odyssey is an invitation to discover how the mysteries of the cosmos are translated into micro-mechanical wonders for the wrist.