The established Swiss watchmaker Jaeger-LeCoultre announced in a recent press release the introduction of three new interpretations of its pioneering Duomètre line. The Duomètre Sphérotourbillon, the Duomètre Chronograph and the Duomètre Quantième Lunaire.
The three new takes on the line exude a sophistication tinged with originality. They feature dials of grey magnetite with an opaline finish, a deep and intense color that will appeal to those who love assertively masculine watches. Each one of them makes a particular use of Jaeger-LeCoultre’s Duomètre technology, notably the Dual-Wing concept.
Magnetite grey dial
The Duomètre Sphérotourbillon features a striking design and a unique function: the Sphérotourbillon, a tourbillon that can be set with total precision. At the very core of the Dual-Wing concept, precision was the byword for Jaeger-LeCoultre’s master watchmakers when deciding their approach to creating the Duomètre Sphérotourbillon watch. Only a small number of tourbillon watches have a clearly legible seconds display with a dedicated counter, and even fewer allow the seconds indication to be stopped. The model demonstrates that it is possible to bring together technical performance, understated aesthetics, and a very expressive watchmaking complication. The cage, machined in a single piece from a block of titanium, combines lightness and high precision. The cylindrical balance-spring, with its two terminal curves, beats with a concentric action that is impossible to obtain with a traditional balance-spring.
The Duomètre Chronographe as its name indicates has a chronograph as accurate as a chronometer. The first movement to use this new construction principle was the Jaeger-LeCoultre Calibre 380, boasting the major asset of displaying the time with chronometer-worthy precision. Again, in accordance with the Dual-Wing concept, the first gear train is entirely dedicated to the time function (hours, minutes, seconds), while the second gear train is exclusively devoted to the chronograph function and features a 1/6th second jumping seconds. Each of these two mechanisms is powered by its own barrel ensuring a 50-hour power reserve (50 hours for the time, 50 hours for the chronograph). There are no transfers of energy between the two.
Photo Cecile Tinchant
The Duomètre Quantième Lunaire model is a calendar watch balanced with accurate time precision. Combining day, date, month with gear trains, adjustments, power is an ultimate challenge in watchmaking, as running such elaborate complication as a calendar within a classic watch naturally has a detrimental effect on the precision of time indications. The Jaeger-LeCoultre watchmakers used the Dual-Wing concept to create a perfect alchemy: a calendar watch that was as accurate as a chronometer. Arranged on the elegant and easily readable dial, the hours, minutes, seconds, calendar, and moonphase displays appear to make the Duomètre Quantième Lunaire a conventional timepiece. But inside the case and partially hidden from view beats Calibre 381, a prodigious movement boasting unprecedented precision based on the Dual-Wing concept, which propels the watch firmly into the spheres of fine watchmaking.
