Sometimes the biggest achievements take place on the smallest scale. Jaeger LeCoultre is responsible for some of the greatest inventions in watchmaking history. The brand has hundreds of innovations, around 400 patents, and over a thousand calibres to its name (yes, you read that correctly – over a thousand). Included on that list are distinctions like the world’s first instrument capable of measuring the micron, the world’s thinnest movement, the world’s most complicated wristwatch, and the Atmos, a timepiece of near-perpetual movement that requires no human intervention and almost no energy.
It all began in Le Sentier, a village in Switzerland, where Antoine LeCoultre founded a small watchmaking workshop following his invention of a machine to cut watch pinions from steel. His work over the next two decades earned him a gold medal for timepiece precision and Mechanization at the first Universal Exhibition in London in 1851. The company continued to grow, establishing the Vallée de Joux’s first full-fledged manufacture, eventually partnering with Paris-based watchmaker Edmond Jaeger. The name was changed to Jaeger-LeCoultre in 1937 and the company officially became the exclusive, innovative brand we know and love today.
