Jaeger Lecoultre

The founding father of Jaeger Lecoultre was Antoine Lecoultre, who taught himself the skill of making watches. His first workshop was founded in 1833. Lecoultre had expanded their business by 1866 to include a small workforce and a steam driven machine which was installed to run their new tools. Compared with other watch makers at that time Lecoultre had a larger business operation rather than the small run home run workshops of their contemporaries.

In 1847 Lecoultre created a watch which used a pushbutton to rewind or set the watch. This replaced the usual method of rewinding the watch which involved the use of keys.

Lecoultre had to invent in order to survive, being cut off from much of civilisation due to harsh winters. This is one of the factors that make Lecoultre such a force to be reckoned with.

One of the names responsible for the Jaeger Lecoultre style was Edmond Jaeger, watchmaker and designer for the Lecoultre business.

The first wristwatches created by Lecoultre featured an element of artistic integrity as exemplified by their watches released in the 1930s. Style wise they drew their inspiration from various countries around the world.

Lecoultre created their first automatic watch in 1946, a big step forward for the company. The Futurematic went one step further by removing the need for a winding crown. An automatic alarm watch was launched in 1956.

Following World War Two Lecoultre manufactured watches with men of action in mind with such attributes as functionality, sturdiness and user-friendliness being the order of the day.