Jaeger-LeCoultre is bringing the stars down to Earth with the Stellar Odyssey Collection

The world of astronomy inspires Jaeger-LeCoultre’s stunning new Stellar Odyssey Collection, including the stunning Rendez-Vous Dazzling Star, with it’s own shooting star.

It‘s a pitch-black night and I’m shivering with cold in a snow-patched field deep in the Swiss countryside. Apparently, in the sky directly above this mountain, a celestial wonderland awaits. Indeed, the observatory in this field is located here specifically because this position in the Vallée de Joux is an astronomer’s dream on account of its seclusion from the bright lights of Geneva. Unfortunately, it’s a cloudy night so visibility is poor, although the telescope still reveals a smattering of silver pinpricks and the outline of a yellowing moon.

The dazzling night sky above The Manufacture Jaeger-Le Coultre, Vallée de Joux.

This wintry night may not be ideal for stargazing, but the Association d’astronomie de la Vallée de Joux’s location is significant nonetheless. Just 10 minutes away is the Manufacture Jaeger-LeCoultre, which has resided in the village of Le Sentier since 1833. Today, the brand is best known for the Reverso, the famed rectangular watch with the swivelling case. But the reason Jaeger-LeCoultre has become known as “the watchmaker’s watchmaker” stems from its technical know-how and a history that includes supplying movements for a host of top-tier brands, including Patek Philippe, Vacheron Constantin and Audemars Piguet.

This year, that mechanical prowess finds fresh inspiration from a galactic theme. The Stellar Odyssey collection is based around cosmic phenomena, with an array of releases that are well and truly starstruck. Admittedly, J-LC isn’t boldly going where no man (or watchmaker) has gone before. The astral world has long held a profound influence on historical timekeeping. Our first awareness of the passing of time was defined by the transition from darkness to light – as the old joke goes, astronomers got tired of watching the Moon go around the Earth for 24 hours so they decided to call it a day. While this classification of “day” and “night” was a helpful start, a degree of refinement was still required. By 1500BC the Babylonians had invented the sundial, which divided daylight into 12 equal parts determined by the shadows cast by the Sun.

Suddenly, the basic concept of “hours” had arrived.

By the Renaissance, astronomers had figured out a way to measure time automatically using a device called the tellurion that worked by gauging the positions of the Earth in relation to the Moon and Sun. “Astronomy and our measurements of time really developed in tandem, each discipline relying on the other,” J-LC’s elegant CEO Catherine Renier explains to me at the Watches and Wonders show in Geneva. “Our conception of time, even as we measure it today, remains intimately tied to what is happening in our Solar System.”

The Stellar Odyssey collection blasts off to orbit this age-old relationship between time and space. Perhaps the most arresting of the pieces is the Rendez-Vous Dazzling Star, which looks to bring the elusive wonder of a shooting star to the wrist. The problem with shooting stars, of course, is their chronic lack of punctuality, a quality somewhat at odds with the methodical precision that watchmaking demands. Brilliantly, however, J-LC turns this lack of dependability into a key feature of the watch with an ingenious complication.

Jaeger-LeCoultre Rendez-Vous Dazzling Star.

At unexpected moments during the day, the depiction of a shooting star will flash across the watch’s deep blue dial, which is framed by a bezel smothered in diamonds. To recreate this unpredictable effect in a complex mechanical template, the complication runs off a second mainspring that is wound up by the rotor. Sufficient spring tension triggers the star effect, but with the amount of movement dependent on the owner’s activities you can’t pinpoint when the shooting star will appear.

“Activated by the movement of the wrist, the rotor, the shooting star appears on the dial at random moments,” says J-LC’s master watchmaker Gregory Vandel. “Its unpredictability makes it even more special.”

From there, the collection gets increasingly mind-boggling. The Master Hybris Artistica Calibre 945, for example, has a star map dial that’s evoked through an ultra- specialised form of layered enamelling known as “grisaille”.

The craftsmanship behind this is impressive in itself, but it’s merely the canvas for an “orbital flying tourbillon” that indicates the hour while moving around the circumference of the dial. The upshot is a watch that not only provides the current time but delivers a glimpse of the constellations in real time as seen from the latitude of J-LC’s Vallée de Joux HQ (even on a cloudy night).

Close up of Jaeger-LeCoultre Hybris Artistica Calibre 945

That same tourbillon also makes an appearance in the Master Grande Tradition Caliber 948, a world timer whose dial depicts the earth as seen from the North Pole. In an added flourish, the continents are presented floating above the dial on a domed skeleton that represents the lines of latitude and longitude. Suitably for a watch informed by an intergalactic perspective, it costs about as much as a spaceship too: the Master Grande Tradition Caliber 948 retails for more than $300,000 and the Hybris Artistica goes for more than double that.

There’s no doubtthat these are extraordinary watches that showcase J-LC’s technical brilliance, even if they can sometimes feel like ingenious solutions to problems that are entirely self-made. But as Renier explains, pushing technical boundaries is what this brand was always born to do. “For Jaeger-LeCoultre, at our heart we are a caliber maker – we make movements. So for us the challenges of watchmaking have always been what drives us.”

For those of us who aren’t watchmakers, it can be something of a stretch to fully appreciate the horological complexity of these works. But what the Stellar Odyssey concept does is to colour them with a palpable sense of cosmic romance. This star- trekking also feels like a natural direction for J-LC to pursue, given its location in the Vallée de Joux. Even without a telescope, its watchmakers can draw inspiration from the pristine skyscape twinkling right above their heads.

There’s no shortage of visual stimulation in the daylight either. J-LC’s impressive alpine home is one of the rare manufactures that houses its full range of professions, decorative arts and technologies under a single roof. But its position surrounded by the Jura mountains on the edge of the Lac de Joux is equally compelling. Natural beauty is something Switzerland does unusually well and J-LC’s home takes full advantage.

Breathing in this magnificence on a morning stroll through Le Sentier, I’m reminded of an insight from J-LC’s keynote presentation at Watches and Wonders a few days before. Professor Didier Queloz, an astrophysicist and Nobel Prize winner, was being quizzed onstage by Renier about the possibility of life on distant stars. Conceding nothing had yet been discovered, Queloz pointed out that what this alien shortage really highlights is the miracle of our own planet. “Today, from an astronomy perspective, we’re realising just how special we are on Earth,” he said. “Special doesn’t necessarily mean we’re unique, but the Earth really is a very special place.”