--- title: "The Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso Learned to Hide Its Face" url: https://quietmenace.com/watches/jaeger-lecoultre-reverso-history/ author: Quiet Menace Editors section: Watches published: 2026-10-29 updated: 2026-10-29 topics: Watch History, Heritage Brands, Industrial Design --- # The Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso Learned to Hide Its Face > Polo players in British India kept smashing their watch glass. A Swiss dealer found a case that could flip over and take the hit on its back. On March 4, 1931, the patent office in Paris received an application for a watch that could slide in its support and turn completely over. The drawings belonged to René-Alfred Chauvot, a French engineer. The problem behind them came from a polo field in India, where British officers had been breaking the glass on their wristwatches in the middle of matches. Before the year was out, the idea had a name, a company and a case on sale. The name was Reverso. ## A broken crystal on the polo ground The man who carried the problem home was César de Trey, a Swiss businessman who traveled to India in 1930. Accounts differ on the details. Some say a British army officer asked him for a watch that could survive a chukka, and some say he was challenged to make one. Either way, the request was specific. Polo is played at a gallop with a mallet and a hard ball, and a watch face on the wrist of a rider is exactly where a stray swing lands. De Trey's thought was not to make the glass stronger but to put it out of harm's way. He took the idea to Jacques-David LeCoultre, whose family firm in the Vallée de Joux had been making movements since Antoine LeCoultre set up shop in Le Sentier in the 1830s. The case work went to Chauvot, who drew a carriage that held the watch head and let it slide sideways and flip, so the dial could face the wrist and the plain steel back could face the world. That back turned out to matter as much as the front. A flat, blank caseback is a surface that can take an engraving, and it gave the watch a second face that was entirely the owner's business. ## A company built around one patent The business side moved fast. In July 1931, de Trey bought the rights to Chauvot's design. In November, he and LeCoultre set up a marketing company called Spécialités Horlogères to sell it, and de Trey registered the Reverso name. That is why the earliest pieces carry the word Reverso alone on the dial, with no LeCoultre signature. The first watches were on sale less than nine months after the patent was filed. LeCoultre had a natural partner in France. Edmond Jaeger had challenged Swiss makers in 1903 to build the ultra-thin movements he designed, and LeCoultre had answered. Jaeger supplied movements to Cartier under a 1907 contract, the arrangement that later put a Jaeger movement inside the [Cartier Santos](https://quietmenace.com/watches/cartier-santos-history/). The two names worked together for decades before the company formally became Jaeger-LeCoultre in 1937. Its [Wikipedia entry](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaeger-LeCoultre) is a useful map of that long partnership. The original case was simple by later standards, made of 23 parts. ## An art deco rectangle What made the Reverso last was not the hinge. It was the shape. The case is a clean rectangle sitting in a sliding cradle, with a dial built from straight lines. It is a pure product of art deco, the style that took over architecture, posters and jewelry between the wars, and it is still cited as a classic of the movement. It also arrived in good company. Rectangular watches had been fashionable since the [Cartier Tank](https://quietmenace.com/watches/cartier-tank-history/), and the Reverso fit the same wardrobe of evening clothes and good tailoring. The polo story got it noticed. The proportions kept it worn by people who had never been near a horse. ![A silver rectangular wristwatch with a dark dial on a metal bracelet, shown with its reflection](https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1786052345447-8228974d8cc4?w=1600&h=1067&q=80&auto=format&fit=crop) *A rectangular steel watch with a dark dial, the shape the Reverso made into a house signature. This is not a Reverso. Photo by César O'neill on Unsplash* ## Two hundred cases in a drawer Then the watch nearly disappeared. Jaeger-LeCoultre stopped making the Reverso in 1948, after 17 years in the catalog, at a time when the company had turned much of its attention to military work. Through the 1950s and 1960s it slipped out of fashion and out of the catalog. By the time quartz watches arrived at the end of the 1960s, the reversible case was largely forgotten. That was the start of the upheaval that would later produce the [Swatch](https://quietmenace.com/watches/swatch-quartz-crisis-history/) and nearly sink the Swiss industry. The rescue, as it is usually told, came from Italy. In 1972, Giorgio Corvo, the company's distributor there, found a stock of about 200 unused Reverso cases at the manufacture in Le Sentier. He bought all of them, had mechanical movements fitted and sold them in short order. The accounts disagree on how fast, ranging from a few weeks to a few months, and Gear Patrol notes that Jaeger-LeCoultre has never officially confirmed the tale. What is not in dispute is that the Reverso came back into production in 1975. ## The 55-part comeback The return that stuck took longer. The company went through a few false starts, including a short-lived Reverso II, launched in 1983 for the firm's 150th anniversary. In 1981 the company asked an engineer, Daniel Wild, to redesign the case to modern standards without changing how it looked. The new case was unveiled in 1985. According to WorldTempus, it was the first Jaeger-LeCoultre case machined with CNC equipment, and it used 55 parts against the original 23. From the outside it was the same rectangle. Underneath, it was built to a modern standard. From there the line grew. For the watch's 60th anniversary in 1991, Jaeger-LeCoultre made its first Reverso with complications, and the model began to turn from a single watch into a full collection. In 1994 the Duoface put a second dial on the back, so the hidden side finally had a job of its own. Since 2000, the company has been owned by the Richemont group. The [WorldTempus history of the Reverso](https://en.worldtempus.com/article/watches/trends-and-style/jaeger-lecoultre-reverso-timeless-stories-since-1931-29815.html) runs through those later models in detail, and SJX's [long history of the watch](https://watchesbysjx.com/2021/12/history-jaeger-lecoultre-reverso.html) covers the patent years. If you are shopping for a vintage example, remember that the case is a moving part, and every early one has been flipped for decades. Our guide on [how to buy your first mechanical watch](https://quietmenace.com/watches/how-to-buy-your-first-mechanical-watch/) covers papers, servicing and what to ask a seller before you pay. For more, see [watch history](https://quietmenace.com/topics/watch-history/), [heritage brands](https://quietmenace.com/topics/heritage-brands/), [industrial design](https://quietmenace.com/topics/industrial-design/) and the [Quiet Menace watches section](https://quietmenace.com/watches/). The trick still works the way Chauvot drew it. Push the case sideways, turn it over, and the dial goes face down against the wrist. Nearly a century on, it remains the rare luxury watch whose best feature is that it can hide. --- Filed under: [Watch History](https://quietmenace.com/topics/watch-history/), [Heritage Brands](https://quietmenace.com/topics/heritage-brands/), [Industrial Design](https://quietmenace.com/topics/industrial-design/) Hero image: Photo by Paul Chambers on Unsplash (Unsplash License)