TAKE TIME: Jaeger-LeCoultre has tapped Lenny Kravitz as its latest ambassador, the Swiss watchmaker announced Thursday.
“It feels like it’s always been there,” said the artist of the Reverso Tribute Tourbillon he is sporting in the visuals introducing him to the role.
Slated for release in May, Jaeger-LeCoultre’s newest campaign features Kravitz starring alongside fellow house ambassador Anya Taylor-Joy, who was named last September.
In the meantime, a behind-the-scenes film showed the musician on set with a guitar, talking about his 1989 first album, “Let Love Rule.” During its preparation, he realized the writer’s block he was experiencing was “time where [he] needed to be quiet, to be still so [he] could hear what [he] was going to be giving.”
The watchmaker’s chief executive officer Catherine Rénier said Kravitz’s “artistry, inventiveness and ability to transcend genres” made him an embodiment of Jaeger-LeCoultre’s values and style.
Kravitz revealed he’d been a watch enthusiast since childhood, long before realizing he was one. “I think I started with my father because he had these cool watches in the ’70s that I loved to look at and hold and play with. I wasn’t allowed to really, but I used to grab them and play with the stop and start buttons on the watch,” he said.
As such, Jaeger-LeCoultre’s combination of “such a high level of craftsmanship, design and function in their watches” resonated with him, he said.
“Beyond the function of a watch, style is very important — how it looks and the way it fits on your wrist. You have to really connect with it,” he said, describing Jaeger-LeCoultre designs as blending into his style in a way that made them “feel like they have always been there” and “as if they become one with you.”
Asked what he loves about the Reverso, a model he also wore for his performance at the 2023 Academy Awards ceremony, Kravitz said it was a design he wears “very naturally” and feels like a permanent fixture by blending with his style. He also enjoys its reversible feature, ”another beauty of this watch” that can change depending on the mood or vibe, ”so you flip it over and you’ve got a whole new thing happening,” he continued.
This latest ambassadorship adds to Kravitz’s style kudos, which saw him honored with the 2022 CFDA Fashion Icon Award in recognition of his musical career and influence in fashion and inducted in the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2023. Before that, he was named the face of Yves Saint Laurent’s Y fragrance franchise in 2020.
Most recently, he performed his 2004 song “Calling All Angels” during the In Memoriam homage segment of the 95th Academy Award ceremony and hosted this year’s iHeartRadio Music Awards in March.
He is also expected to release his 12th studio album this year, following it up with a tour. “I’m looking forward to releasing the new music that I recorded over the last three years and getting out on the road and playing and celebrating music in life,“ he said.