JAEGER-LECOULTRE’S THE HOUR BEFORE WELCOMES IU

There is a particular kind of anticipation that exists before a performance begins. The stage is prepared, the audience waits, and the artist stands at the threshold between preparation and expression. It is this private interval that Jaeger-LeCoultre seeks to explore through The Hour Before, an interview series centred on the unseen hours behind accomplished creative lives.

For its sixth episode, the Maison introduces IU as its newest Global Ambassador, placing her within a wider conversation about artistry, authenticity and dedication to craft. Rather than focusing solely on the finished performance, the series considers the discipline, concentration and personal rituals that precede it. In this context, time becomes both subject and metaphor: something measured by a watch, but also accumulated through practice.

IU’s participation follows previous chapters featuring figures from different creative fields, including actor Omar Sy and Joshua Hong. Jaeger-LeCoultre describes the series as an exploration of the moments that shape extraordinary journeys, drawing parallels between the precision required in watchmaking and the commitment demanded by artistic disciplines.

The sixth episode is titled IU: Before Expression Takes Shape. At its centre is the idea that expression is rarely spontaneous in the strictest sense. Behind a performance, film, song or creative work lies a considerable accumulation of unseen effort. Repetition, refinement and concentration gradually become instinctive, allowing the finished work to appear effortless.

IU articulates this private space in a simple observation: “The Hour Before is the moment I come back to myself.” The line gives the series its most intimate dimension, suggesting that the period before public expression can also be one of personal return and reflection.

That emphasis on what happens away from the spotlight closely mirrors the philosophy of Jaeger-LeCoultre’s own watchmaking. The Maison has spent more than 190 years developing a culture in which precision is not an isolated achievement but the result of accumulated knowledge, specialised skills and repeated refinement.

Founded in 1833 by Antoine LeCoultre in the Vallée de Joux, Switzerland, the workshop began with a commitment to precision and invention. LeCoultre developed tools that allowed watch components to be measured and produced with unprecedented accuracy for the period. In 1844, he created the Millionomètre, an instrument capable of measuring to the micron, an achievement that contributed to the increasing precision and miniaturisation of watchmaking.

The Maison’s heritage is also closely connected to its Manufacture model. In 1866, Antoine LeCoultre and his son Elie brought watchmaking crafts together under one roof, moving beyond the fragmented system of specialised workshops that characterised much of nineteenth-century Swiss watchmaking. This integrated approach became a defining feature of the Manufacture and eventually contributed to its reputation as the “Watchmaker of Watchmakers”.The name Jaeger-LeCoultre itself emerged from the meeting of Swiss watchmaker Jacques-David LeCoultre and French watchmaker Edmond Jaeger in 1903. Their collaboration combined French design sensibility with Swiss technical expertise, a relationship that ultimately led to the creation of the Jaeger-LeCoultre name in 1937.

Today, that tradition continues within the Vallée de Joux Manufacture-Atelier, where the Maison brings together a broad range of watchmaking disciplines. Jaeger-LeCoultre states that its Manufacture encompasses 82 workshops, 108 crafts and 235 techniques, including 69 signature savoir-faire, alongside a history of more than 430 patents and more than 1,400 calibres.

This breadth of expertise gives The Hour Before its central comparison considerable substance. The preparation behind a watch is rarely visible once it reaches the wrist. The finished object conceals the hours invested in engineering, assembly, finishing and decoration in much the same way that a completed performance conceals the repetition and concentration that made it possible.

The series therefore extends beyond a conventional ambassador campaign. Its premise is rooted in the distinction between achievement and the process that produces it. Jaeger-LeCoultre positions its selected Ambassadors and Friends of the Maison as people whose accomplishments are accompanied by substantial periods of preparation that audiences rarely see. Their public presence is the visible part of a much longer journey.

IU is particularly suited to this framework because her career spans music and acting, disciplines in which public expression depends heavily on preparation. Her appointment as Global Ambassador adds a contemporary cultural perspective to Jaeger-LeCoultre’s longstanding relationship with creative figures while keeping the emphasis on dedication rather than spectacle. The Maison describes the collaboration as being grounded in artistry, authenticity and dedication to craft.

The episode also connects naturally with the Reverso, one of Jaeger-LeCoultre’s most recognisable watch designs. The Maison’s current selection associated with the episode includes the Reverso Classic Monoface Origin in stainless steel with a quartz movement, the pink-gold Reverso Tribute Monoface with manual winding, and the stainless-steel Reverso Classic Duetto with a manual-winding movement.

The Reverso’s history makes it an especially appropriate object within a series concerned with what lies beneath visible expression. Created in the early twentieth century as a watch whose case could be swivelled to protect its dial, the design has developed into one of the Maison’s enduring platforms for technical and artistic expression. Its reversible architecture creates a natural relationship between what is shown and what is kept private.

That duality resonates with the premise of The Hour Before. The finished performance belongs to the public; the preparation belongs largely to the individual. One is visible, the other concealed, yet neither exists without the other.

For Jaeger-LeCoultre, the latest episode with IU consequently places contemporary celebrity within a much older philosophy of craftsmanship. Its focus is not simply on the person seen on stage or screen, but on the quieter accumulation of hours that makes such moments possible.

There is something fitting about a watchmaker choosing to tell that story. A mechanical timepiece records the passage of hours with extraordinary precision, while a creative life gives those hours meaning through repetition, patience and expression. In The Hour Before, the interval before the finished work is not treated as empty space. It is where the work begins.