Jaeger LeCoultre Master Control watches presents a round answer to the rectangular Reverso models. JLC Master collection is the ultimate high-end Swiss line of watches, similar in spirit to the classic Vacheron Constantin Patrimony, Blancpain Villeret, and Audemars Piguet Jules Audemars. The timepieces come in dramatically clean, or highly complicated designs, with many in-between variations. This, as the name aptly implies, is a true “master” collection.

Master Control watches include the following complications: tourbillon, power reserve (eight days), perpetual calendar, world time, dual time, moon phases, and ultra-thin cases. All in all there are fifteen Master Control models currently in production. The majority of the watches contain an automatic movement – a departure from the largely hand-wound Reverso.

The classic Master Control is a stripped to basics model with a central seconds hand and a single date complication. The white dial glares almost defiantly, saying only two words: Jaeger LeCoultre. There's an undercurrent of pathos in this simple watch, and it spreads to all the other models, splintering to pride, more defiance, and giddy irreverence. I think that had Napoleon lived today, he would have been wearing Jaeger LeCoultre, not Breguet.

Jaeger LeCoultre introduce several visual elements to Master Control watches. The collection doesn't shun using color, usually red, often supported by blue hands of the multiple subsidiary dials. The dials effortlessly combine apertures with subdials and pointer complications, often arranging them in slightly imbalanced configurations that please the eye.

The faces can incorporate black, gray or white, colors that act as a brightening background for the red and blue indices and markers. Moreover, face color often constitutes a complex grid that when examined closely reveals the intent of facilitating legibility.

The cases employ a perfect circle, with a somewhat wide bezel and matching, symmetrical, strong lugs. The bezel's wideness provides a clear sense of confidence and reliability evident even in the ultra thin models. When Jaeger LeCoultre stress their movements' reliability, they leave it up to the customers to receive a similar impression from the design – but do everything in their hands to ensure that the right impressions are made.

Materials

Master Control watches come in pink gold, platinum and stainless steel, outfitted usually with leather straps (in different colors). The relative limited range of materials serves to remind us that this is, after all, a traditionalist collection, one which doesn't shun latest technology, but neither purports to flaunt it.