Nothing Makes Sense This Monday, And The Jaeger-LeCoultre Polaris Perpetual Calendar In Pink Gold And Green Is To Blame
Let’s do a little test. I want to know how you react to the following types of watches. Are you ready? Here we go — dive watches with tourbillons and pilot’s watches with perpetual calendars. Do you start to feel a tad uncomfortable? Did your left eye twitch a little? It’s a “yes” for me on both counts. I know that a certain brand advocates that rules can be broken after they’ve been mastered, but I still find it difficult to deal with a certain type of tool watch and precious metal, an “unnatural” colorway, and/or an illogical complication. On paper, a pink gold dive watch with a green dial and a perpetual calendar seems like utter blasphemy. So how come I find the “nonsensical” Jaeger-LeCoultre Polaris Perpetual Calendar in pink gold and green so desirable?
We’ve covered several watches from the contemporary Jaeger-LeCoultre Polaris collection, which debuted six years ago. Two of the most recent complicated visitors were the updated Polaris Chronograph with a new lacquer dial and the Polaris Geographic, a characteristic travel watch in typical Jaeger-LeCoultre style. Now, for some, dive watches with complications are just a fact of watch life, while for others, they are a source of, well, complications. If you ask me, a dive watch is an instrument that needs to do just two things — tell time in light and darkness and have a “time-preselecting device,” as the ISO 6425 standard states. To me, a dive watch is a water-resistant timepiece with an internal or external dive bezel. Added functions, like a date, GMT hand, chronograph, and so on are clutter. And a dive watch with a perpetual calendar must be the most cluttered watch ever.
Pick your Polaris
Illogical attraction to the Jaeger-LeCoultre Polaris Perpetual Calendar in pink gold and green
The perfect Polaris doesn’t exist. According to my principles, the perfect Polaris for me would be the 41mm steel no-date Automatic. Unfortunately, the black-dial reference Q9008471 on its brown leather strap doesn’t set my heart on fire. On historical grounds, the Polaris Mariner Memovox should be my favorite. But despite being a distinct and functional alarm watch, the Polaris’s modern lines and shapes don’t seem to match the Memovox’s classic origins. For some reason, the contemporary Polaris’s boxy appearance doesn’t harmonize with the subtle vintage “buzz” of the Memovox.
The steel Polaris Geographic (Q9078640) and the Polaris Perpetual Calendar (Q908263J) side by side
The chronograph and travel-time models mentioned above are beautifully made watches. However, the dials appear a bit forced to me with their many different surface finishes, structures, and color gradations. Yes, the level of craftsmanship at “JLC” is very high. And I understand that showing off is part of the brand’s new, bolder strategy after having been too shy and introverted for far too long. But with the Polaris Chronograph and Geographic, “La Grande Maison” from Le Sentier seems to be overdoing it. So why don’t I feel the same way when I look at the Polaris Perpetual Calendar (Q908263J) with a pink gold case and a green dial?
The watch mind works in mysterious ways
The Polaris Perpetual Calendar is not a new watch. It debuted in steel with a blue dial and was followed by a version in pink gold with the same dial color. The steel reference Q9088180 impressed me when it came out in 2022. It did so with a chunky steel bracelet and a gradient blue and black dial that made sense because it made reading the time and the markings on the rotating inner bezel very easy. I also thought the watch’s 42 × 48 × 11.97mm case had nice proportions. With a box-style crystal, a narrow bezel on top of a strong-looking case with clear lines and polished and brushed surfaces, and a dial that looks complicated at first glance but is very easy to read, that particular Polaris Perpetual Calendar was also attractive. Indeed, it was so attractive that I almost instantly forgot about my aversion to complicated tool watches.
But I also then forgot about the steel Polaris Perpetual Calendar. That was mainly because of its heavy price tag, not because the watch isn’t impressive. On the contrary, it has a lot going for it. There’s the automatic, in-house caliber 868/AA with 70 hours of power reserve. The beautifully finished movement shows hours, minutes, seconds, a perpetual calendar (day, date, month, and year), and moon phases in both hemispheres — the small retrograde hand in the lower portion of the sub-dial at 6 o’clock shows the lunar phases of the Southern Hemisphere and returns to its initial position in just 0.05 seconds. Interestingly, despite its complexity, the Perpetual Calendar variant is slimmer than the simpler Polaris Date (11.97mm versus 13.92mm). That could be because it’s water resistant to “only” 100 meters instead of 200.
An alligator strap on a dive watch…
A dive watch with a green dial? I understand black or white, sure, and blue is okay since it’s the color of water. But green? Who wants to dive in swamp water? Still, for some reason, the combination of a gradient green lacquer dial showing a perpetual calendar’s many indications and framed by a pink gold case works, at least for me. No, logically speaking, it doesn’t make sense. But you could state that the Jaeger-LeCoultre Polaris Perpetual Calendar in pink gold and green proves again that logic is not an indomitable force in the world of Haute Horlogerie. What leaves me shaking, though, is the €57,000 price of the watch, not even the fact that this luxurious Polaris comes with a green rubber and a black alligator strap. Yes, that’s right — alligator leather on a dive watch… Don’t even get me started.
Please comment below with what you think of the watch. Also, don’t be shy, and share your explicit thoughts on complicated tool watches.
For more info on the Polaris Perpetual Calendar in pink gold and green, please visit the official Jaeger-LeCoultre website.
