Jaeger-LeCoultre revives the Polaris with new sporty range
Jaeger-LeCoultre revives the Polaris with new sporty range
A new collection of stainless steel sports and travel-oriented watches brings back the Polaris name
January 28, 2018
For some months now, we have been hearing that Jaeger-LeCoultre would be releasing a new collection of watches, one that would go some way to open the brand up to a younger audience and counter what we can only assume are underwhelming sales figures. Now, here it is.
It’s called the Polaris collection, and if that sounds familiar to you, it’s because the name is not a new one for the brand. It originally adorned a line of Memovox alarm watches in the 1960s, badged either as Jaeger-LeCoultre or LeCoultre, for the US market – and has been revived once before already, when Jaeger-LeCoultre released a limited edition 768-piece run of a Polaris Memovox tribute in 2008. Ten years later, Polaris is back, and this time it covers more than alarms.
The foundation of the collection is the Polaris Automatic, a three-hander in stainless steel currently being shown only with a blue dial – we would assume at the very least a black dial version also exists. It has an inner rotating dive bezel and supercompressor-style twin crowns, one at 2 o’clock and the other at 4 o’clock.
Design wise, the dial is very faithful to Polaris pieces of yore, with applied indexes and numerals filled with a faux-aged tone of SuperLuminova, and contrasting finishes that distinguish between the central and outer sections of the dial. The hands, too, are highly detailed under close inspection.
Sitting alongside the Polaris Automatic is the Polaris Date: as above, but with a date window at 3 o’clock. This model is being shown on a steel bracelet with a black dial; again, we would expect to see a full range of colours and strap options.
Next up is the Polaris Memovox. That’s right, the collection does contain a Memovox alarm model and it is the most faithful of all to the original 1968 inspiration. With that black dial and beige lume, it aches of vintage – in a good way. Again, we have supercompressor crowns, plus a third for winding and setting the alarm – which will have its own barrel.
Previous Memovox divers had a perforated outer case to act as a resonant chamber with a water-resistant inner case; we don’t know for sure if that’s the same here but would seem likely. This model is shown on a rubber strap.
Now we come to two more complicated models in the range. First, the Polaris Chronograph. This drops the dive bezel and second crown in favour of a tachymeter scale graded from 0-500, and sheds the beige/faux-aged luminova in favour of plain white.
It’s a tiny bit redolent of the Zenith Pilot chronograph big date special (you know, the one they only recently discontinued). What will be interesting is to see how this compares to the Jaeger-LeCoultre Deep Sea Chronograph in terms of price.
Last but not least, we have the Polaris Chronograph Worldtimer. This builds on the latter watch with a rotating inner bezel for the cities, and a 24-hour day/night scale just inside that. These will be controlled via the crown at 10 o’clock. London is picked out in red, alongside a few other tiny traces of colour to lift the dial.
It’s a very classic worldie, in the vein of a Girard-Perregaux 1966 or the much-missed and all-conquering Zenith Doublematic. To offer a knee-jerk reaction, this is the best current example of the Chronograph Worldtimer we’re aware of.
This article was first published on Salon QP
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