Jaeger-LeCoultre
Polaris Date
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Stéphane Belmont
IW INTERVIEW:
DIVING INTO POLARIS
BY MICHAEL THOMPSON
Stéphane Belmont, Jaeger-LeCoultre’s director
of heritage and rare pieces, tells iW about the
genesis of the new Jaeger-LeCoultre Polaris
collection that debuted earlier this year.
76 | INTERNATIONAL WATCH | FALL 2018
What is the significance of Polaris Memovox for
Jaeger-LeCoultre?
It is a very interesting watch in many ways. The Memovox itself is one of the
very few diving watches with an alarm. The first diving watch with an alarm
was the Deep Sea Alarm Automatic, which we created in 1959. We did one for
Europe and another one for the United States. It was the first diving watch
really without a rotating bezel. It uses the alarm to record the diving time.
And the sound is even better underwater than in the air.
To us this was a better way to make a diving watch–where the alarm is the
reminder of the diving time. That is what makes the Polaris (which debuted in
1965) very interesting. The Deep Sea was a 39mm watch, whereas the Polaris was
much bigger at 42mm. So that makes it one of the first watches of its type with a
larger diameter. You can feel that it was a transition to the 1970s, and to today.
How have you retained those design cues in the new
Polaris collection?