Jaeger-LeCoultre enlists BC to front Polaris Collection

Benedict Cumberbatch on the ‘Human Touch’ of Watchmaking
By KATHLEEN BECKETTMARCH 22, 2018

The actor Benedict Cumberbatch has taken to wearing a Jaeger-LeCoultre Polaris, a water-resistant model “useful for doing the dishes and helping out at bath time.” Right now Benedict Cumberbatch’s most precious commodity just might be time.

That would explain the clashing of pans and plates in the background of a phone interview. It was 8 p.m. in London, the actor was at home in the Hampstead neighborhood, and, he admitted, “I’m eating my supper that I just cooked.”

But it didn’t stop the BBC “Sherlock” star from explaining how time and ways to measure it have featured prominently in his life recently.

A broken watch, inscribed “Time will tell how much I love you,” had a key role in Mr. Cumberbatch’s 2016 Marvel film “Doctor Strange.” The title character was “a massive collector, trapped in a gilded cage, alone in all the materialism,” the actor, 41, said. “But he keeps the watch, even though it’s broken, because of what it said.”

The watch was a Jaeger-LeCoultre Master Ultra Thin Perpetual, which led Mr. Cumberbatch to becoming an ambassador for the brand and turning up at the Salon de la Haute Horlogerie in Geneva in January. But what impressed him most from the trip was a visit to the Jaeger-LeCoultre atelier in the Swiss mountain village of Le Sentier.

“I saw up close and personal how enameling is done, how a tourbillon is created, how a watch is assembled,” he said. “The real beauty lies in the human touch. The watches are built by hand; that’s what made me fall in love.”

He said he was dazzled, too, by how the company’s workers were keeping traditions and skills alive, admiring “the ethos of these people, their craftsmanship.” And he compared their pride in their craft with his in acting: “I’m proud of what I do.”

The actor recalled that his first watch was a Swatch, picked up in an airport duty-free shop on a family holiday when he was a boy. As his taste matured, “I’ve always admired classic, simple, elegant timepieces,” he said. “I’m not one for diamond-encrusted or big dive watches.”

On that particular evening, however, he was wearing a Polaris, a reissued Jaeger-LeCoultre water-resistant model. “It’s a diving watch but it is elegantly simple, light and sleek,” he said. “It has a beautiful chiming alarm that I use for deadlines and appointments.

“And,” the father of two continued, “it’s very useful for doing the dishes and helping out at bath time.”

Mr. Cumberbatch resumes the role of Doctor Strange in “Avengers: Infinity War,” scheduled for release in late April, but can’t say if the JLC watch makes an appearance as well. But also on the horizon is a film that just might be close to his heart.

It’s called “How to Stop Time.” At least until he finishes dinner.

www.nytimes.com/2018/03/22/style/watches-jaeger-le-coultre-benedict-cumberbatch.html