Jaeger-LeCoultre and Marc Newson Amplify the Wonder of Time

In the aftermath of the ephemeral moments within Milan Design Week, three introductions from Jaeger-LeCoultre and lauded industrial designer Marc Newson remain as present as the phenomenon they depict: the passage of time. In the decades-spanning “The Perpetual Timekeeper” exhibition, the “watchmaker of watchmakers” unveiled two new Atmos table clocks—the Atmos Designer Calibre 568 by Marc Newson and the Atmos Hybris Artistica Tellurium Calibre 590 by Marc Newson—and Newson’s modern interpretation of a Memovox Travel Clock. For anyone unfamiliar with the former, which was first introduced in 1928, it is automatically powered by fluctuations in a room’s temperature. The Newson designs, particularly with the Atmos Hybris Artistica Tellurium Calibre 590, reinforce its cosmic wonder.

Newson began working with Jaeger-LeCoultre for a mesmerizing 2008 Atmos, and then again for the 2010 astronomical clock. “He is not a collaborator,” Jérôme Lambert, CEO of Jaeger-LeCoultre, tells Surface. “For Marc, the brief is, ‘what’s your idea?’ That’s all. [To partner with us] you need to live the maison from the inside. You need to understand what is particular about what we do, and embrace what speaks to you at what time, so that you can capture it. You need to feel it. All of this is something that, emotionally, he lives with.”

An aesthetic and technical marvel, the Atmos Hybris Artistica Tellurium Calibre 590 incorporates a tellurium with month, season, and zodiacal calendar indications. Its moon phase function is so accurate that it will deviate by only one day over the next 5,770 years. Visually, 539 cabochon-cut sapphires represent the principal stars of the constellations set into the glass globe. “Atmos is something that is, beyond the technical dimension, very philosophical,” Lambert says. “It lives through the air. It has a perpetual movement that exists for 100 years. It’s an object that’s an antidote to program obsolescence.”

For many attendees of “The Perpetual Timekeeper,” the limited, numbered, and decidedly modern Memovox came as the biggest surprise. Featuring Jaeger-LeCoultre’s new manually wound Calibre 256 movement, with a staggering 12-day power reserve, the pebble-like piece integrates a clear Memovox alarm complication. “We had not done a travel clock for 40 years,” Lambert says. “To bring back this tradition took time. Catherine [Rénier], my predecessor, launched the process. It required a lot of technical resources and a mastery of titanium. As Marc was returning to the maison, it was also a very good way to demonstrate the intentionality of what he does. It gave us the opportunity to reveal, together, something different.” The piece comes complete with custom leather travel accessories, designed by Marc Newson, and crafted by the Italian Cuoieria Maison Schedoni.

Ultimately, the debut of these pieces within Villa Mozart during Milan Design Week was the result of a perspective shift. According to Lambert, the maison is most often celebrated for the technical advancements inside its pieces. “When it comes to objects like the Atmos or the travel clock, however, the external design speaks for itself,” Lambert says. “It’s all so clearly defined that we thought we would introduce it from a world that looks at design from outside to inside, like Milan Design Week, as opposed to one that moves from inside to outside, like Watches & Wonders Geneva.”