Watch Snob: The Perfect Power Watch

Jaeger LeCoultre

“The Reverso outclasses most other timepieces while still remaining understated and elegant…“

Looking For A Proper Power Watch

Dear Snob,

I am based in the Middle East, where big, bold, sparkly watches are all the rage with the locals and just about every British expat owns a Submariner. I work in real estate and advise various investment groups on transactions to multinational corporations. I am very client-facing, and my job involves lots of meetings with high-level locals and also with local CEOs of multinational corporations. I am 28 years old and own a pretty crappy timepiece. I would like to buy my first “proper” watch. I am looking to spend around $7,500 and would like to make a sound investment in something that I can wear for work, possibly has a couple of time zones, looks good in a suit, is classy, elegant and a little bit different. Any thoughts?

Given your location and your vocation, you should waste no time procuring a proper timepiece. Lucky for you, in the Middle East, you can’t walk a city block without coming across a watch boutique. The brands follow the money, and every week it seems there is another smiling watch-company CEO cutting the ribbon at a new boutique in Doha, Dubai or Abu Dhabi.

I’ve found a watch that will be the perfect antidote to the diamond-encrusted ingots those across the table from you are wearing: the Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso Duo. If you’re not familiar with the Reverso, you have no business wearing a watch, period, but I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you know this horological icon. The Duo variation replaces the plain caseback of the original with a second dial that displays another time zone.

The hidden beauty of this timepiece, beyond its obvious classic aesthetics, is that the same movement drives the time on both dials — no small feat. Not that your Rolex-wearing compatriots will care about this, but you can be quietly smug, knowing what ticks on your own wrist. And the Reverso outclasses most other timepieces while still remaining understated and elegant — two words rarely heard in your neck of the woods these days.

Girard-Perregaux Watches

I’ve been a longtime fan of Girard-Perregaux. For years now, we’ve been hearing about Nicolas Déhon and how he got the idea for a constant force escapement while playing with a train ticket. Now that Girard-Perregaux has finally put it into a watch (which I assume is beyond the Snob’s size limit at 48 millimeters), what are your thoughts on it?

For many years — around two hundred, as a matter of fact — the tourbillon has been at the pinnacle of watchmaking achievement, a feather in the cap of any watch company that has one in its collection. But, frankly, the tourbillon is getting a bit long in the tooth. Not only is the complication more relevant for rate regulation in a pocket watch, which would sit vertically in a man’s waistcoat pocket all day (that is, if a man wore a pocketwatch, much less a waistcoat these days), but now we’re seeing tourbillons in cheap copycat watches coming out of China. Clearly, we needed companies to start looking for new challenges. Next Page >>