Jaeger-LeCoultre Polaris watches

The Jaeger-LeCoultre Polaris collection descends from the Memovox Polaris of 1968, a diver's watch with a mechanical alarm. According to Hodinkee's Ben Clymer, 1,714 of the originals were made. Fifty years on, Jaeger-LeCoultre revived Polaris as a full collection, from time-only watches to chronographs, and showed it in Geneva in January 2018.

The 2018 watches take their look from the 1968 model: a dial in three concentric zones, with a grained outer ring and a sunray centre, and black or ocean-blue dials. Some carry vanilla-toned Super-LumiNova that recalls the tritium of the original. The Polaris Automatic is the 41 mm steel watch with two crowns and an inner rotating bezel, the Chronograph is 42 mm in steel or pink gold, and the Chronograph World Time is a 44 mm titanium watch with an extra crown for the city disc. The Polaris Memovox revives the alarm: a 42 mm, 15.9 mm steel case with three crowns, limited to 1,000 pieces and powered by the automatic calibre 956 with a 45-hour reserve. Its top crown winds and sets the alarm and sets the date, the middle crown turns the 60-minute inner bezel, and the lower crown winds the movement and sets the time.

In October 2020 the Polaris Mariner Memovox (Q9038180) and Mariner Date (Q9068180) took the line to 300 metres, up from 200, and to the ISO 6425 diving standard. Both are 42 mm steel watches with screw-down crowns banded in orange, gradient-blue dials, white lume, skeletonised hands and an inner elapsed-time bezel; the Memovox keeps the calibre 956, and the Date's calibre 899 has 70 hours of reserve. The Polaris Perpetual Calendar comes in steel (Q9088180) or pink gold (Q9082680), in a 42 mm case 11.97 mm thick. Among the limited pieces, the Vintage Blue on rubber (9068681) was made in 800 pieces.