Having just announced that Chinese mega star Zhang Ziyi has joined its roster of global ambassadors, Swiss watchmaker Jaeger-LeCoultre has launched a brand new watch with an intriguing complication related to another celestial body – a shooting star.
The new Jaeger-LeCoultre Rendez-Vous Shooting Star takes as its inspiration the seemingly random and mysterious appearance of shooting stars, which are only visible in our atmosphere at certain times of the year and only when conditions are just right. Streaking across the sky and vanishing within moments, these heavenly occurrences have long stirred our human imaginations – simultaneously regarded as potent symbols of good fortune, bad luck, romance, divine intervention, transcendence, fate, impermanence and hope. Comets and shooting stars can be seen streaking across the ancient Bayeux Tapestry, which dates from the 11th century, and the 15th century Nuremberg Chronicle. Shakespeare described them as “importing change of times and states”, while the noted Victorian astronomer, Richard Anthony Proctor, dubbed them “flowers of the sky”.
Now, the ethereal magic of shooting stars has been translated into a precious time-teller, thanks to an innovative new complication developed by Jaeger-LeCoultre, which allows a precious ‘shooting star’ to appear, seemingly at random, across an intricate mother-of-pearl and diamond-set sky on a watch dial.
Comprised of 335 individual parts, the maker’s complex new in-house automatic calibre 734 is responsible for incorporating this ‘shooting star’ mechanism – allowing what appears to be a random cosmic event to occur within the ever-precise and mathematically calibrated world of horology. When activated the calibre causes a disc bearing the laser-cut silhouette of a shooting star to whizz around the dial, echoing the way a comet streaks across the night sky.
Two iterations of the Jaeger-LeCoultre Rendez-Vous Shooting Star will contain the new calibre 734, each available in a limited series of only ten pieces. Both are encased in 18k pink gold, with one bearing a hand-painted miniature pink peony blooming across its dial and a total of 625 brilliant cut diamonds (including within its bracelet), the other featuring a blue hand-painted lacquer peony, a coordinating blue alligator leather strap and 189 brilliant-cut diamonds set into its case and dial.
A new campaign featuring Zhang Ziyi accompanies these glittering timepieces, uniting these celestial-themed watches with the brightest new star in the Jaeger-LeCoultre universe.
Like this? Learn more about Jaeger-LeCoultre’s talented new ambassador
