In Praise of Stillness: The Atmos by Jaeger-LeCoultre at Salone del Mobile
In the opulent calm of Villa Mozart during Milan Design Week, a private conversation with Jaeger-LeCoultre CEO Jérôme Lambert turned to the Atmos, that rarefied creation that appears to hover between epochs.
By Ash Longet
PR & Business Development
At once archaic and futuristic, the Atmos from Jaeger-LeCoultre remains a totem of horological ingenuity, unsullied by the entropy of modern life. A living vestige of Swiss watchmaking mastery, the Atmos has lost none of its mystery and rises, both physically and symbolically, above the white noise of our digitized and anxious age.
Having recently returned to the brand’s helm like a prodigal son welcomed back to the family seat, Jaeger-LeCoultre CEO Jérôme Lambert speaks of La Grande Maison not as a business but as a vocation – a calling – keeping his voice low while his eyes burn with quiet fervor.
When he speaks of the Atmos, it is with reverence: “It is a brilliant idea that travels through time,” he said in Milan. And the enduring allure of a mechanism of such functional rarity, it stands as a quiet rebuke to the tyranny of planned obsolescence, has been confirmed by strong interest at auction.
Conceived in 1928 and animated by a near-esoteric principle – the infinitesimal variation of just one degree of temperature sufficing to power it for forty-eight hours – the Atmos is far more than a clock. It is a silent manifesto against velocity. It breathes the ambient air and comes to life at a thermal sigh: the Atmos is like an organism, a mechanical sculpture, a totem of time made tangible.
The Elegance of the Perpetual
As Lambert astutely noted during our discussion, in an era where connected devices lay siege to our wrists and infiltrate our homes, Jaeger-LeCoultre offers a deliberate counterpoint: the beauty of what is profoundly unnecessary - and therefore utterly essential.
“That’s why we felt there was no better place than the Salone to bring the Atmos to life – to let it speak,” he told Watchonista, suggesting not a product launch but the reawakening of a living presence.
The result, even for a seasoned watch executive, was unexpected. “The fact that an object nearing its centenary can still draw a thousand people in half a day at Salone del Mobile shows just how relevant it remains,” Lambert added in a voice that was part wonder, part quiet pride, but above all, animated by a gentle conviction: the Atmos has never been more modern.
This return to the domestic sphere – the realm of the interior – is meant to echo a broader shift in how we live. The pandemic, that paradoxical catalyst for contemplation, brought us back to our hearths, to spaces once abandoned in favor of restaurants, open-plan offices, and departure lounges. Our salons have become salons once more.
The Manufacture as Monastery
During our discussion, Lambert moved effortlessly between philosophical reflection and the mechanics of the global market: “There is a very demanding horological ethic at the heart of the Maison,” he explained, invoking the 180 distinct crafts brought together beneath a single roof in the Vallée de Joux.
This concentration of savoir-faire transforms the manufacture into more than a workshop. It becomes a monastery of time, where the human hand sanctifies each tick and every tock.
In this rarefied pursuit, the goal is to reimagine tradition through innovation. Thus, a gyrotourbillon becomes a baroque ballet of gravity; the Reverso transforms into a cubist meditation on the duality of being; and the Atmos stands as a column of silence in the cacophony of the contemporary world.
Repeatedly distracted by the quiet insistence of his own wrist, Lambert turned his gaze to what I had earlier called one of the understated stars of the recently concluded Watches and Wonders Geneva 2025: the Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso Tribute Monoface Small Seconds.
He did not disagree. Instead, he smiled and offered an observation of almost poetic economy: “It catches the light in a thousand different ways – and it’s never the same twice.”
But beyond its sculptural elegance, what truly fascinates Lambert is the subtle pulse of time itself. “The seconds are the equivalent of BPM in music – the heartbeat of the watch,” he noted. “Its beat frequency is the emotion of the movement, something you only perceive after you’ve lived with it, worked with it, felt it.”
Far from the shrill spectacle of modern marketing, Jaeger-LeCoultre cultivates something more profound – what Lambert calls a belief, an act of faith in horology that is not content to simply measure time but to elevate it. “What’s rare today is finding something spectacular that is also sincere,” he said.
These are not feats of engineering designed merely to dazzle the eye but expressions of time intended to move the soul.
For more information about the brand’s recent releases, check out the Jaeger-LeCoultre website.