Edit: Candle Magazine
Jaeger-LeCoultre is adding a fresh twist to its Calibre 101 collection with a new take on the High Jewellery 101 Secrets watch, now available in Platinum 950. The original version, introduced in 2023 in diamond-set 18K pink gold, took hundreds of hours of work to craft a completely new design.
Jaeger-LeCoultre’s dedication to accuracy goes back to the company’s founder, Antoine LeCoultre, who began in 1833 with a small workshop in Switzerland’s Vallée de Joux. He crafted his own tools to make tiny parts and ensure his watches were as accurate as possible. Almost a century later, in 1929, this quest for smaller, more precise components led to the development of Calibre 101.
Since 1929, Calibre 101 has captured the imaginations of many designers with its tiny, manually-wound mechanical movement—it’s the smallest of its kind in the world. Over the years, it has been transformed into a variety of creations, made from fine metals and often with precious gems.
With the 101 Secrets watch, Jaeger-LeCoultre ups the ante by hiding not just one, but two secrets. First, you have to uncover the dial to actually see the time. And second, there’s a clever mechanism that opens the dial cover.
The manually wound movement is compact, with 98 tiny parts packed into a space that’s just 14 mm by 4.8 mm and only 3.4 mm thick, weighing in at just one gram. Despite its small size, it offers 33 hours of power reserve.
The bracelet has 1,028 diamonds, totaling 26.21 carats. Each gem is set using two different techniques: a double row of tiny diamonds placed closely together, surrounded by two outer rows of slightly larger stones and all these diamonds were set over a span of 182 hours.
