Modernahab
1145
"Golden Age" indeed.
To both your and Alfihar's points, there was a period, spanning roughly the first decade and-a-half of this century, where JLC was on an impressive creative roll. I think of the Master Compressor, Amvox, Reverso Squadra, Reverso Gran' Sport, LAB Series, Geophysic, and Duomètre lines, along with many a complicated Reverso, and wonder at the creativity and daring on display, as compared to now. Granted, not all of these stuck the landing, so to speak, but at least JLC seemed to be capitalizing on its capacity for invention and mechanical execution. The maison has since retrenched almost completely and, as others have observed, now relies almost entirely upon retreads and modest surface tweaks for "new" introductions.
While I don't think Richemont mismanages its watch brands with quite the flabbergasting incompetence of the Swatch Group, they have of late done a very, very poor job with JLC. Rumors of a management buy-back were in the end just that, but wouldn't it be fun to imagine a JLC free of Richemont's bean counting and creative restraints? (Of course, I don't think Richemont can really afford to lose JLC. Even with Richemont having expanded their group manufacturing capacity substantially over the last decade, I suspect that their other brands are still heavily reliant on JLC for manufacturing and technical development.)
Put on an old friend today.
A Reverso with an unusual black dial… those were the days when JLC made poetic watches…
"Golden Age" indeed.
