When it comes to fine watches, nothing beats seeing them out in the world. Jaeger-LeCoultre gave this chance in Singapore when the Swiss watchmaker brought its SIHH 2015 novelties to town for an exhibition (ongoing at ION Orchard till February 15) on the occasion of the official launch of the new boutique. Interestingly, this is the first Jaeger-LeCoultre boutique in Southeast Asia to feature the wall of mechanical movements – a reminder of the more than 1,000 movements created by the Grande Maison in more than 180 years. The watch we are looking at today is one of those new pieces and illustrates perfectly the problem with just looking at pictures.
Briefly, this is a complete calendar timepiece, showing, date, day, month and moon phases alongside hours, minutes and small seconds. Seems pretty earthy as far as fine watchmaking is concerned but there is something truly celestial at work here. The dial is made of meteorite, which has been carefully worked into thin strips for this purpose. Before it ended up here (or on your wrist for that matter), it was resting for untold ages in a glacier in Sweden where meteorite hunters identified and extricated it. Long before that, it was minding its own business in the asteroid belt just past Mars. When you wear this 39mm watch (in steel and pink gold), you can remember that we are all indeed made of stars.
