Jaeger-LeCoultre: history, iconic models and innovations
Jaeger-LeCoultre: history, models and innovations
Jaeger-LeCoultre is one of the most respected Swiss manufacturers and was founded in 1833 in Le Sentier. Since its foundation, the brand has created more than 1200 calibers, from the smallest one ever, equipping a women's watch, to complicated and highly-complicated Jaeger-LeCoultre watches.
This fully vertically integrated manufacture, whose activities range from parts assembly to decoration, is also well known for building superb pendulum clocks like the Atmos.
The foundation and the role of the LeCoultre family
The family that founded the brand was initially French but moved to Switzerland in the second half of the sixteenth century, where PierreLeCoultre himself founded, in 1612, the small town of Le Sentier, where the manufacture is still based today.
It was Antoine LeCoultre to build the first-ever Jaeger-LeCoultre manufactory; in 1833, he invented the machine to cut and make pinions to be used in watches, and in 1844 he created the most precise measuring instrument in the world, the Millionometre, he first one capable of measuring the micron to refine the manufacture of watch parts.
What was a small watchmaking workshop in 1833 soon became the LeCoultre & Cie. watch company in 1866; Antoine and Elie LeCoultre brought all the watch manufacturing skills under one roof.
LeCoultre watches soon stand out as a manufacture of fine mechanical movements.
In 1870 Jaeger-LeCoultre had an over 500-people workforce, and at the beginning of the twentieth century, it had produced over 350 mechanical movements, offering an unparalleled technical product mix, including almost 40% chronograph movements and about 30% repetition mechanisms.
1903 - LeCoultre begins to develop ultra-flat mechanical movements
In 1903, LeCoultre watches began developing ultra-thin calibers, taking up the challenge of a Parisian watchmaker, Edmond Jaeger, who proposed the Swiss manufacturers to manufacture the ultra-thin mechanical movements he designed. Back then, LeCoultre & Cie. accepted such a challenge by building the thinnest pocket watch ever, for example.
It debuted in 1907, featuring the glorious LeCoultrecaliber 145. Later, LeCoultre manufactured other movements designed by Edmond Jaeger himself for Cartier. The French luxury brand became the exclusive customer to Jaeger's specific movement, with LeCoultre producing the entire supply. This close collaboration brought the company to become Jaeger-LeCoultre in 1937.