If you are looking for a watch that expresses the high arts of jewelry and watchmaking in one neat package, Jaeger-LeCoultre’s new 101 Secrets could be the answer.
It has a secret dial that is revealed by pushing a diamond-covered button.
The case and bracelet are covered by more than a thousand diamonds.
The watch itself is powered by Calibre 101, the smallest mechanical movement in the world.
The original Calibre 101 was first produced by JLC in 1929, giving the brand every right to call itself a “master of miniaturisation”.
This new watch expands the Secrets 101 collection, which debuted last year.
The earlier version was also diamond-set, but with a pink gold case and bracelet.
The new version has a case and bracelet in platinum – although the metal can be difficult to spot beneath all the diamonds.
JLC tells us that the 101 Secrets took hundreds of hours of research across many different disciplines of watchmaking, gem-setting, metallurgy and so on, along with the mechanical skills to make the tiny mechanism that reveals the watch dial.
The button to activate the mechanism is not visible – it is hidden below diamonds and the owner must be shown how to reveal the dial by learning what stones to press.
The manually wound movement has 98 components, measures 14 mm x 4.8 mm with a thickness of 3.4 mm and weighs just one gram.
Although tiny, it still manages a very decent 33 hours of power reserve.
The bracelet is set with 1,028 diamonds – for a hefty total of 26.21 carats – and each watch takes 182 hours of gem setting.
$POA jaeger-lecoultre.com