Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso

A steel Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso Classic Duoface, dial side up, with its silver dial, Arabic numerals and small seconds at six. The Reverso began with British officers playing polo in India, who kept cracking their watch crystals on stray mallets. The answer, patented in 1931, was a rectangular case that slides out of its cradle and turns over, so the glass faces the wrist and the metal back takes the hits. That flip is why the Reverso still matters as design. The back became a canvas for monograms, enamel or, on Duoface models like this one, a second dial, and the stepped bands at each end give the case its Art Deco look whichever side faces up.