This year has seen Jaquet Droz slowly supplementing their standard Grande Seconds figure 8 watch design style with more traditional watch layout designs. It almost feels odd seeing a Jaquet Droz watch with standard hands. While this Jaquet Droz Quantième Perpétuel Céramique watch does have a standard hour and minute hands layout, the rest of the watch is rather unique. No doubt with assistance from their corporate parent the Swatch Group, they developed this well conceived perpetual calendar watch. The case is ceramic, which is ideal as the curves are gentle and allow for a very good use of the material. Some surfaces appear to be in a matte finish while others are polished.

Two retrograde hands flank the middle of the watch with day of the week and date indicators. The upper subsidiary dial indicates the month, while a small window inside indicates the leap year cycle. In the lower middle of the dial is a subsidiary seconds dial using Jaquet Droz’s typically shaped seconds hand with ringed counter-weight. The design overall is very satisfying to the eye. Small elements prevent it from being as legible as it could be. I would have liked the hour and minute hand to be in a different color than the other hands as to make them stand out and be more legible. Also, the layout on the retrograde date indicator will require some mental calculation to determine the date as you’ll need to stare at it a bit longer than you’d like to determine the information. Regardless, these are minor points as buyers of watches such as this aren’t usually too concerned with factors such as precise legibility. The watch looks very nice, and that is what is important to the target market.