About the Book

Reverso by Nicholas Foulkes is a richly illustrated Assouline volume dedicated to one of the most recognizable wristwatches ever made: the Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso. Published in collaboration with Jaeger-LeCoultre to mark the Reverso’s 90th anniversary, the book traces the story of a watch that began as a practical solution for polo players and became one of the great design icons of the twentieth century.

Nicholas Foulkes is especially well suited to this subject. He is not only a horological writer, but also a historian, journalist, and cultural commentator whose work often explores the relationship between luxury, society, taste, and power. His previous books include Patek Philippe: The Authorized Biography, The Impossible Collection of Watches, and studies of high society and style. That matters because the Reverso is not simply a technical watch. It is a cultural object, a design statement, and a symbol of elegance shaped by sport, architecture, Art Deco, personal expression, and social identity.

This is not a technical manual or a collector’s catalogue in the narrow sense. It is closer to a visual history, design essay, and cultural portrait. Through archival images, original photography, and Foulkes’s writing, the book presents the Reverso as a watch whose genius lies not only in its mechanism, but in the way that mechanism became identity.

Why This Book Matters for Watches & Politics

This book matters for Watches & Politics because the Reverso shows how a watch can begin as a functional object and become a cultural language.

The Reverso was born in 1931 from a practical problem: polo players needed a watch that could survive impact. The solution was a reversible case that allowed the wearer to turn the fragile dial inward and expose the solid caseback to potential damage. But what began as protection became expression. The flip, originally a function, became the soul of the watch.

That transformation is deeply relevant to Watches & Politics. The Reverso belongs to the world of sport, colonial leisure, Art Deco modernity, elite taste, and personal identity. It emerged at a moment when geometry, architecture, machine-age design, and modern social codes were reshaping culture between the wars. Its rectangular form was not merely stylistic; it reflected a broader belief in order, balance, rationality, and modern design.

The Reverso also matters because it turns the watch into a participatory object. Most watches present themselves to the world in one fixed way. The Reverso invites the wearer to choose: dial or caseback, function or memory, public face or private message. Through engraving, enamel, decoration, and personalization, the reverse side becomes a space for identity. It is a watch that understands the politics of display and concealment.

For Watches & Politics, the Reverso is not loud power. It is coded power. It signals taste, restraint, education, and intimacy. It does not dominate the room like some modern luxury sports watches. Instead, it asks to be noticed by those who understand why restraint can be more powerful than spectacle.

What the Book Covers

Table of Contents

·       Art Deco Origins

·       The Story of an Integrated Manufacture

·       A Collective Invention

·       Birth of an Icon

·       Personal Stories

·       High Watchmaking

·       Métiers Rares

·       Timeless Modernity

·       Notes

Key Ideas from the Book

Necessity can become iconography

The Reverso began with a practical problem: protecting a watch during polo matches. But the solution was so elegant that function became design language. The reversible case was not hidden as a mechanism. It became the watch’s defining gesture.

Art Deco gave the Reverso its intellectual architecture

The Reverso’s rectangular shape belongs to the world of Art Deco, where geometry, proportion, symmetry, and machine-age elegance carried cultural meaning. In a world of round watches, the rectangle was not a compromise. It was a statement of order, modernity, and confidence.

The flip is not a gimmick — it is identity

The Reverso’s defining act is physical. The wearer engages with the object by turning it over. That small gesture creates a ritual. It reminds us that a watch can be more than something passively worn. It can be touched, transformed, hidden, revealed, and personalized.

The caseback turns the watch into a private archive

The blank reverse side made the Reverso unusually personal. It could hold initials, family symbols, enamel scenes, commemorations, or private memories. In that sense, the Reverso is not only a watch. It is a miniature archive of identity.

Good design evolves without losing its grammar

The Reverso has survived for more than ninety years because its basic idea was complete from the beginning. Jaeger-LeCoultre has expanded it through dual faces, complications, high watchmaking, artistic crafts, and contemporary variations, but the essential grammar remains unchanged: rectangle, pivot, proportion, restraint, and surprise.

Restraint can be a form of status

The Reverso is not a watch that shouts. Its power is quieter. Wearing one suggests a taste for design history, subtlety, and personal meaning. In a culture often dominated by spectacle, the Reverso represents a different kind of status: one built around recognition, knowledge, and restraint.

Who Should Read This Book?

This book is especially useful for collectors interested in Jaeger-LeCoultre and the Reverso, readers drawn to Art Deco design, students of watch history, and anyone interested in how one watch can move from sport to style to cultural memory.

It is also valuable for collectors who care about personalization, engraving, enamel, and the emotional life of objects. For readers of Watches & Politics, it is especially relevant because it shows how a watch can express identity not through volume or spectacle, but through form, gesture, and private meaning.

Tags

Jaeger-LeCoultre, Reverso, Nicholas Foulkes, Assouline, Art Deco, Polo Watches, Rectangular Watches, Watch Design, Horological Books, Métiers Rares, Watches and Politics, Collector Education

Further Reading & Related Episodes

Related Books:

·       The Impossible Collection of Watches by Nicholas Foulkes

·       Patek Philippe: The Authorized Biography by Nicholas Foulkes

·       Revolution in Time by David Landes

·       About Time by David Rooney

·       Time on My Hands by Mitch Katz

Related Watches & Politics Episodes:

·       Series 1, Episode 2: Industrial Revolution and the Democratization of Watches

·       Series 1, Episode 5: Timepieces of Power

·       Series 1, Episode 7: The Resurgence of Vintage, Neo-Vintage, and Traditional Watchmaking

·       Series 1, Episode 8: The Watch Collector as Political Actor

·       Series 2: Roman Serebrianyk on horological books, collecting, and knowledge preservation

·       Series 2: Zaf Basha on Jaeger-LeCoultre, collecting, and scholarship