Jaquet Droz’s Tropical Bird Repeater watch sets paradise in motion

Jaquet Droz, a Swiss watchmaker founded in 1738 with a distinguished history, has had a long love affair with nature and animals. Its legendary Bird Repeater features a mechanism that, at the touch of a button, sounds the hours, quarter-hours and minutes with the vibrations of cathedral gongs struck by hammers inside the case, and activates up to eight animations of the birds through the automata.

As an extension to this automaton watch collection, first unveiled in 2012, Jaquet Droz has today released a limited-edition model inspired by a tropical landscape. The Tropical Bird Repeater watch, with only eight pieces available, presents the essence of the brand: its watchmaking and decorative expertise.

On the mother-of-pearl dial, the three-dimensional scene of flora and fauna has been crafted with hand-carved, hand-engraved and hand-painted elements. In the centre is a hummingbird, given life by the maison’s artists, fluttering its wings at up to 40 times per second as it moves towards a shrub of inhabited by bright orange birds of paradise. According to Jaquet Droz CEO Christian Lattmann, the wings are specifically made with brass instead of rose gold to allow the airy movement. Having to incorporate such delicate parts into a watch and ensuring the needed level of shock resistance at the same time was a challenge, he adds.

As the wearer activates the mechanism, an orchestrated show of movement begins: the hummingbird flutters its wings, the peacock with intense blue feathers to the right fans and closes its tail, while a toucan emerges from the palm leaves at 3 o’clock to open its beak. Three elegant dragonflies located at 9 o’clock dance in the air, and are particularly magical in the dark when their tiny SuperLuminova-coated wings glow.