Jerome Lambert
Our strategy will not change because there is a crisis going on – after all we have been in business for over 175 years and we think long-term, therefore we will continue to be interested in innovation to keep up with the tradition of our manufacture, says Jerome Lambert, CEO of Jaeger LeCoultre (and more recently the “guardian” of the A. Lange & Söhne brand). “Jaeger LeCoultre has passed the 175-year mark, which demonstrates a very long tradition and an outstanding watchmaking savoir-faire. However, we have never relied on the past but wanted to be inventive, to take bold steps forward and La Vallée des Joux is perfect for something like that, because the harsh climate forces us to be creative. Our situation could be summed up like this: ‘Be creative or die – of boredom’,” Lambert says jokingly.
About seven years ago the manufacture set innovation in haute horologerie as its goal, in order to clearly stand out and to demonstrate that although watchmaking is a centuries old art, this does not mean that imagination and resources have dried out. “Every year we focus our entire energy on this mission.”
At the 2009 SIHH in January, the new Grande Tradition took the centre stage. “It is a very important line for the brand, the most important launch of last year, because it encompasses the entire style, savoir-faire of Jaeger-LeCoultre, with our movements and – the icing on the cake, a touch of inventiveness, of innovation, in a line dedicated to complications. The highest level of complications has been transferred into a new line, with a pure Jaeger-LeCoultre classical design,” says the indefatigable Lambert, whose favourite word (supported by reality, after all) is “innovation.”
It was very important to the brand to set the aesthetic coordinates of a line dedicated to complications, so that they went with a design that takes a cue from the forties – “an age when innovation and good taste were the keywords of design, from wristwatches to cars and fashion. Grande Tradition speaks about complications, about our love for them, and about our capacity to invent – for instance we have a new silicone escapement and a new system to test chronometers, to guarantee perfect accuracy,” Lambert says.
In his opinion, Grande Tradition speaks about the past of the brand (haute horologerie), about the present (excellence in component making, from dial to the manually engraved bridges) and about the future (new materials such as silicone).
An unplanned effect of this collection, which was in the works as early as 2006-2007, was the strong lure of the classical retro design – it is a well known fact that in times of crisis people tend to go with products that speak of a calm, optimistic, creative period (as the post-war era is defined), and the Grande Tradition models stood out in this respect first of all.
“Beyond the trend to go back to an era seen as a rebirth of mankind, I believe we were also helped by the reaction of the market to the overdose of excessively accessorised watches. Which made us think that this could be our stand on the current developments on the haute horologerie market. And we came to the conclusion that our mission is to develop la grande tradition of high quality watch making, to continue with pure and classical models,” Lambert says.
The collection with enamel dial models, masterpieces in their own right, too, is part of the strategy of the manufacture to draw attention to one of its competencies every year. Whereas in 2008, the focus was on Atmos, in all its instances from precious woods to contemporary minimalism, in 2009, the stand in Geneva showed models that demonstrate various enamel using techniques: miniaturisation, grand feu, champlevé.
As for the partnership with Ralph Lauren which is just starting out in this field, Jerome Lambert says Jaeger-LeCoultre only supplies movements for the fashion brand – “I believe it is a very stylish way for them to start in haute horologerie”, and rules out working more closely with them.