Time Frame: Jaeger-LeCoultre's nod to Bauhaus

Jaeger-LeCoultre ‘Reverso Tribute Small Seconds, 2019 Edition’, in stainless steel.

(Image credit: Kayser & Schmuck)

last updated 2 August 2022

The 100th anniversary of the Bauhaus this year got us thinking about classic watch design. For, as the Jaeger-LeCoultre ‘Reverso’ shows, the creation of both remains firmly rooted in Walter Groupius’ dicate that form must follow function.

Launched at the turn of the 1930s, when the wristwatch was the ultimate in personal technology, the ‘Reverso’ was conceived as a way of protecting the dial during polo matches.

A gentle push and the engineered case rotates to conceal the face, revealing an enigmatic blank true to the timepiece’s industrual, art deco character. While functions have been added along the way, the Reverso’s form remains unchanged, as this year’s re-edition proves.

As originally featured in the May 2019 issue of Precious Index

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Caragh McKay has been a contributing editor at Wallpaper* since 2014. She was previously watches & jewellery director and is currently our resident lifestyle & shopping editor. Caragh has produced exhibitions and created and edited titles for publishers including the Daily Telegraph. She regularly chairs talks for luxury houses, Van Cleef & Arpels and Cartier among them. Caragh’s current remit is cross-cultural and her recent stories include the curious tale of how Muhammad Ali met his poetic match in Robert Burns and how a Martin Scorsese film revived a forgotten Osage art.

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