A New FRONTIER

The nearly two-century-old watchmaker Jaeger-LeCoultre has crafted its first olfactive identity courtesy of perfumer Nicolas Bonneville.

- GORDON NG

What is art today? It’s a good question, but not one you’d, generally speaking, ask a watch brand. That, however, has been on the mind of Jaeger-LeCoultre, the Swiss manufacture founded in 1833 behind the iconic Reverso. “Believe it or not,” says Matthieu Le Voyer, the brand’s chief marketing officer—filling in at the moment before a CEO is announced—“we’ve been looking for a formal definition and it’s not clear. So we came up with what art means to us at Jaeger-LeCoultre.”

Le Voyer refers to the Made of Makers initiative that the brand kickstarted in 2020. It began, then, with commissioning Zimoun, a Swiss artist who works with sound sculptures, on an original work for a Jaeger-LeCoultre exhibition. In a few short years since, the initiative has expanded greatly.

There have been 11 collaborations so far that span experiential installations, mixology, 3D anamorphic sculptures, patisseries, typographic design, music compositions, video sculptures, digital floral art, two-Michelin-starred gastronomy and streetlight painting.