Jaeger—Le Coultre: Watches for Bruce Willis & Elizabeth II, clocks for JFK & Churchill

Are the most expensive watches just useless toys of the rich and the powerful or are they mere aesthetic symbols of extravagance and conspicuous consumption? Many of the world’s top luxury watches are actually fine jewelry pieces, solid investments passed on as heirlooms and fashionable status symbols for the elite and the most accomplished achievers on earth. Their remarkable precision technology, age-old tradition of craftsmanship by hand and their intrinsic values make these luxury watches worth more than their high prices.

The fast-paced globalization of the world economy is changing the rules in the once hallowed industry of high-fashion luxury watch-making, with ancient family-held dynasties selling out or merging with big business groups led by dynamic transnational entrepreneurs.

Today, the two biggest conglomerates which dominate the luxury watch market with their aggressive acquisitions of various famous brands in recent years are the Louis Vuitton Moet Hennesy (LVMH) Group based in Paris, France, and its rival and the second biggest conglomerate, Richemont International led by South African tycoon Johann Rupert.

Richemont Buys JLC, Lucerne Opens Biggest Store

Richemont has, in recent years, bought but maintained the unique identities and traditions of world-class watch brands Jaeger-LeCoultre in 2000, also IWC of East Germany and Lange & Sohne. Also now part of the Richemont Group are Piaget of Switzerland, Cartier of France, Montblanc of Germany, Van Cleef & Arpels of France, Baume & Mercier of Switzerland and others.

Rival groups with strong luxury watch brands include the Swiss-based Swatch Group with its 16 brands, and the Montres Rolex Group with its bestselling Rolex as its flagship brand. Switzerland is the undisputed world champion in luxury watches, with other European nations like Germany also as important producers. In the category of mass production – running to hundreds of millions – of trendy and affordable watches, the Hong Kong-South China region is emerging as the world leader in efficiency and entrepreneurial vigor. This region is also fast catching up even in the expensive categories.

One of the world’s top 10 posh brand names to recently market its exquisite watches with the visit of its top executives is Switzerland’s Jaeger-LeCoultre (pronounced as "ye-ger lo-kult"), sometimes also referred to as JLC. The JLC promo coincided with the December 5 relaunch of the newly-renovated Lucerne Jewelers in Shangri-La Plaza Mall, the biggest of its kind in the Philippines with over 1,750 square feet of floor area. This will also be the first store to feature a Rolex "shop-in-a-shop" concept in the Philippines. Special guests in the event were led by Jaeger-LeCoultre Asia Pacific region managing director Daniel Rogger and marketing manager for North Asia Magdaleina Lam (who showed us the unique Reverso Septantieme model on her wrist, which has an eight-day power reserve, another face at the back, among other unique features).

Bruce Willis, Elizabeth II, And Asia: World’s Top Buyers Of Luxury Watches

If the mid-range Omega watches have Pierce Brosnan of James Bond fame and supermodel Cindy Crawford as celebrity endorsers, the more exclusive Jaeger-LeCoultre has in its roster of distinguished clients names like Hollywood action star Bruce Willis and the controversial Irish soccer superstar Roy Keane who was kicked out of the Irish national team in the World Cup last year and is now the aggressive captain of the Manchester United professional team. The world’s wealthiest female royalty, Queen Elizabeth II, wore a special Jaeger-LeCoultre watch to her historic coronation over half a century ago when the British Empire was still mighty and ruled over much of the world. The world’s tiniest mechanical watch movement so impressed Elizabeth II that she chose to wear the Jaeger-LeCoultre Calibre 101 model watch on her coronation day. This model was created in 1928 and has remained the world’s smallest mechanical movement, with its skeletonized version weighing only less than a gram and gaining the distinction of being the world’s lightest watch movement.

Daniel Rogger, Asia Pacific region managing director of Jaeger-LeCoultre Richemont, points out why the world’s elite buy luxury watches: "There are various reasons. A luxury watch like Jaeger-LeCoultre is a piece of art. It is a fashion statement, it also expresses your unique personality. A successful person should buy the best watch, because you spend more time with the watch than with your wife (laughs), which is basically true. A man wears his watch about 15 hours per day, but do you stay with your wife that long daily? A luxury watch is something very personal, it expresses your personality and your character. I personally own 30 different watches, although I’m not a serious collector. Taiwan, Hong Kong, China and Singapore are among the world’s top buyers of luxury watches because many affluent Chinese people and entrepreneurs are watch collectors. I know of Chinese collectors with the most exquisite tastes who own 100 to 200 luxury watches. Jackie Chan of Hong Kong is a well-known watch collector."

Rogger adds: "You’d be surprised that in the Philippines, we have a good solid base, and the market potential is good. The top Asian watch-buying nations are Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, Taiwan and mainland China, with the unprecedented fast growth coming from China. We estimate that there are now already 20 to 30 million affluent people in China who can afford to buy luxury watches, and this number is growing very fast as never seen before anywhere else. Europe’s wealthiest nation, Germany, only has a total of 80 million population, so you can appreciate the magnitude of Asia’s economic and buying potentials in the coming years. In Asia, buyers do not like yellow gold luxury watches because Asians used to save their money in yellow gold so they don’t hold it in high respect as luxury watch. Asians prefer pink gold and white gold in luxury watches. Diamond-set watches are also well-liked in Asia. Europeans have a different taste, preferring two-tone watches like steel and yellow gold. The Americans also prefer yellow gold watches. On the other hand, Asians are world champions in good taste and in volume of luxury watch purchases."

John F. Kennedy, Charles De Gaulle, Winston Churchill: Atmos VIPs

In the category of clocks, Jaeger-LeCoultre is almost unmatched when it comes to the revolutionary concept of its famous Atmos clocks. The Atmos has become the Swiss government’s official gift to its VIP guests, who have included US President John F. Kennedy, Princess Irene of the Netherlands, King Hussein of Jordan, US President Richard Nixon, British Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill, French President Charles de Gaulle, US President Ronald Reagan, Hollywood legend Charlie Chaplin and Pope John Paul II.

A technological marvel, the first prototype of the Atmos was made in 1928 by its inventor J.-L. Reutter. It is a clock driven just by air, achieving the phenomenon of almost perpetual motion. The Renaissance genius Leonardo da Vinci once said that constructing a perpetual motion machine was physically impossible, but this didn’t stop JLC engineers from trying.

The Atmos operates on a unique technical principle. A hermetically sealed capsule is filled with a gas, which expands as the temperature rises and contracts as it falls, thus making the capsule move like a concertina. This constant motion winds up the mainspring of the clock – a variation in temperature of only one degree between 15 and 30°C is already enough to keep the Atmos clock operating for two straight days! The Atmos clock is a masterpiece of Swiss artistry and the engineering talents of the French Huguenot Protestant refugees who fled to Switzerland five centuries ago from religious persecution.

Since the Jaeger-LeCoultre brand was founded in 1833 by then 30-year-old Antoine LeCoultre in the Jura hills of Switzerland’s rugged Vallee de Joux area, JLC has consistently contributed to the Swiss international leadership in production and nonstop technological innovations in luxury watches and clocks. The consistent world leadership of JLC and other brands from this region settled by French Huguenot Protestant watchmakers is testament to the Swiss people’s national culture of discipline, high quality and unending quest for excellence.

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