The trend for high-end mechanical timekeepers that are not wristwatches — such as the crowd magnet Royal Pop pocket watch by Audemars Piguet and Swatch — now includes the Memovox Travel Clock, a collaboration between the Australian industrial designer Marc Newson and the Swiss watchmaker Jaeger-LeCoultre.
The $32,400 alarm clock, which can double as a table clock, is a spin on the brand’s Memovox alarm watches from the 1950s and 1960s, with the same triangular pointer on the dial to indicate the alarm time.
“These types of products seem to be having a renaissance,” Mr. Newson said. “For me, it’s mostly about creating objects that have intrinsic value and are fundamentally analog in the way they work. And if you wake up to this, you may be in a better mood than if you hear a telephone alarm.”
Mr. Newson, known for his collaboration on the Apple Watch and more recently on the Ferrari Luce electric car, first partnered with Jaeger-LeCoultre in 2008 and over the years has designed a series of Atmos clocks, so called because they use a winding mechanism powered by expanding and contracting gas.
The new Memovox Travel Clock, introduced at the Milan Design Fair in April, runs on a more conventional mechanism, Jaeger-LeCoultre’s hand-wound Calibre 256, developed for the project over a five-year period. Along with a chiming alarm that Mr. Newson described as “sweet and calming,” the timepiece has a 12-day power reserve indicated in apertures over the numerals, which turn from orange to blue as energy is used.
Critical to the model’s design and function, Mr. Newson said, is the rotating ring set into the clock’s outer edge, which serves as what Jaeger-LeCoultre is calling a “peripheral crown.” When rotated, the winding or setting functions, selected using a rocker switch on the case back, are activated.
According to Mr. Newson, manipulating the crown is meant to be pleasurable. “I wanted this product to be supremely functional and to become one of your favorite objects that you want to experience and be with, like taking a piece of your domestic environment with you wherever you go,” he said. “There’s nothing glamorous about traveling any more, so anything we can do to inject some romance into the tedium of moving around would help.”
At 69 millimeters wide and 18 millimeters deep (2.7 inches by 0.7 inches), the titanium clock is not much larger than some wristwatches. It has a folding stand built into the case back, and comes with a travel pouch and a bespoke display stand created by Italian leather specialists Schedoni.
Mr. Newson, who said he owns several Memovox watches, agreed that the pebble-shaped clock had echoes of his previous watch designs, such as those under his Ikepod brand. “It’s not that I intentionally try to reference things I’ve done,” he said. “It’s my vocabulary, my handwriting.”
The watch critic Kristian Haagen, the author of a number of books on watches, said watchmaking needed products like Mr. Newson’s clock.
“If you’re in love with mechanical pieces, why wouldn’t you have a table clock?” he said. “It’s a playful object, like a very expensive fidget spinner.
“I can imagine guys putting it on their desks and timing meetings. When the alarm bell sounds, ‘That’s it, sir — time’s up.’”
