This September, iconic Swiss watch manufacture Jaeger-LeCoultre invites visitors on a ‘curated journey through horological excellence’ with The Adventure Spirit Travelling Collection. This immersive experience will be on display at the maison’s Old Bond Street flagship boutique and explores eight decades of Jaeger-LeCoultre’s sports watches, alongside the origins of its contemporary Polaris collection.
The earliest sports watches date back to the 20th century, when shock-resistant wristwatches started to replace de rigueur pretty-but-impractical pocket watches. Hardy and technically sophisticated, sports watches were an evolution of the military watch; pioneered for soldiers and pilots in World War I and adapted for civilian use in the great outdoors.
Jaeger-LeCoultre’s own sports-watch heritage also stems from its military watches of the 1940s, which transitioned to the maison’s now-iconic diving watches in the 1960s. Just as disco, eye-catching graphic design and questionable fashion defined the 1970s, so too did Jaeger-LeCoultre’s bold and colourful sports watches that emerged in the era. Later, the 2000s saw the introduction of state-of-the-art conceptual sports watches.
These four chapters – Military Watches, Diving Watches, Bold Sports Watches and High Concept Sports Watches – make up The Adventure Spirit Travelling Collection, and will include rare and remarkable models, on display from 15 September until 18 October 2025.
Visitors to the Old Bond Street flagship boutique can experience ‘true masterpieces of watchmaking’, including Jaeger-LeCoultre Memovox Deep Sea, the world’s first diving watch equipped with an alarm, and the beautifully complex Master Compressor Extreme LAB 2, which comprises 569 components. Other highlights include the iconic Geophysic, originally released in 1958 as a cornerstone of the maison’s ability to produce a watch model that would withstand the toughest conditions and uphold exceptional standards of water-resistance, anti-magnetism and precision timing.
“By shining a spotlight on sports watches, The Adventure Spirit celebrates the inventiveness of the Watchmaker of Watchmakers”
‘By shining a spotlight on sports watches, The Adventure Spirit celebrates the inventiveness of the Watchmaker of Watchmakers through its ongoing evolution and reinvention of a genre defined by high performance, robustness and practical functions, all enhanced by distinctive aesthetics,’ the brand commented. ‘The maison’s latest models carry forward this sporty legacy, reinterpreting it for today’s lifestyles and projecting it into the future.’
The Adventure Spirit Travelling Collection will be on display from 15 September-18 October 2025 at the Jaeger-LeCoultre Flagship Boutique, 13 Old Bond Street, London W1S 4SX and will be open to the public Monday to Saturday, from 10am to 6pm