JAEGER-LECOULTRE’S SPORTING LIFE
Following years of austerity after the Second World War, the 1960s saw new horizons at a time when anything felt possible. Politically, socially and culturally, from miniskirts to moon-landings, the world changed beyond all recognition and inevitably this infiltrated the world of design. While the 1950s focused on economic recovery, the 1960s looked to the future through the eyes of a new generation filled with hope and expectation. Travel, hobbies and technology were all within reach and Jaeger-LeCoultre’s avant-garde dive watch, the Memovox Polaris, was very much a product of that time… even down to the name.
Polaris began life as a nickname, but was a welcome replacement for the original “ref. E859” and immediately helped it stand out in a sea of unimaginative watch names. Like Top Gun’s Maverick and Iceman, whose aerobatic warfare would have been equally impressive, but a lot less memorable, if they had flown as Pete and Tom, Polaris and its macho, futuristic overtones had a powerful impact on the desirability of the watch, making it a gem that stood out for – at least at the time – the sheer awesomeness of its nomenclature.
The UGM-27 Polaris was a solid-fuelled, nuclear-armed, submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) built for the US Navy during the Cold War. Intended as a deterrent against possible attacks from Russia, the first of Britain’s four ballistic missile, was launched by Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother in 1966, when she paid tribute to “the miracles of modern science” that had gone into the vessel. With the belief that possibility for error was virtually non-existent, and Polaris were the great new hopes for preventing future warfare and became fully operational in 1968 – the same year the Memovox ref. E859 was launched.
