Cover Lenny Kravitz wears a Reverso Tribute Geographic (Photo: courtesy of Jaeger-LeCoultre)
Lenny Kravitz wears a Reverso Tribute Geographic (Photo: courtesy of Jaeger-LeCoultre)
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In a ten-minute conversation over video call, Lenny Kravitz—rock legend, renaissance man and Jaeger-LeCoultre brand ambassador—speaks to Tatler GMT about the discipline of waiting, the craft of timelessness, and why the Reverso is the watch he wanted
“I’m just an antenna, to pick up what’s being transmitted to me.” It takes Lenny Kravitz exactly one sentence to make you rethink everything you thought you knew about one of rock’s most iconic figures. He’s in the Bahamas, recording, preparing to go back out into the world—and though his team had warned me he was pressed for time, there is nothing rushed about him.
That line unlocks the whole philosophy: the decades of refusal, the hours alone in the studio playing every instrument himself, the record deals turned down because they wanted him to be someone else. Kravitz doesn’t chase the music he creates, he waits for it to find him—and when it does, he gets out of its way.
It is also, I’d argue, the best possible description of a Jaeger-LeCoultre watch—which is perhaps why, when the Swiss maison came to him about an ambassadorship, it felt less like a partnership and more like a recognition. Kravitz had been about to buy a Reverso anyway.
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Above Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso Tribute Duoface Small Seconds (Photo: courtesy of Jaeger-LeCoultre)
Above Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso Tribute Duoface Small Seconds (Photo: courtesy of Jaeger-LeCoultre)
Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso Tribute Duoface Small Seconds (Photo: courtesy of Jaeger-LeCoultre)
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Watches, for Lenny Kravitz, have always carried the weight of memory. When asked whether there is a timepiece or cherished object from his childhood that he still keeps close, he does not hesitate. “I have two things—one from each parent,” he says. “I have a gold peace-sign necklace that my mother used to wear in the Sixties. There are a lot of pictures of her wearing it, and she loved it. And then I have a Seiko watch from my father—the watch he wore to work. He was a journalist, an assignment editor for NBC News. He put on his suit every day, and his watch. I keep them both close with me.”
He has spoken elsewhere of being captivated by his father’s chronographs as a boy—the hands, the dials, the little counters he would wind and release in secret. “He was never around when I was messing with the watches,” Kravitz says. “They were on the shelf, and I would play with them when he wasn’t around.”
Of all the watches Lenny Kravitz might have landed upon as the centrepiece of a luxury partnership, the Reverso feels almost predestined. The iconic Jaeger-LeCoultre creation, with its reversible case originally designed to protect the dial during polo matches, is a watch defined by duality, with two faces and two personalities. It is not hard to see the appeal for an artist who has always resisted being reduced to a single thing.
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Above Lenny Kravitz in Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso Tribute Chronograph (Photo: courtesy of Jaeger-LeCoultre)
Lenny Kravitz in Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso Tribute Chronograph (Photo: courtesy of Jaeger-LeCoultre)
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“I love the duality of it. It’s either two faces, or one side is your precious metal protecting the watch. I like that it’s not just one thing all the time. I like that it changes, and that you can have a choice of which side you want to express.”
Crucially, the Reverso was a watch Kravitz had coveted long before the partnership came about. “I was about to purchase one,” he says, “because that was a watch I did not have in my collection—and then we began talking, and the [watchmaker] came to me [with a brand ambassador proposal], and we started working together. I [got] more educated on [Jaeger-LeCoultre’s] origins, which I found very interesting. When I wear mine, I’m reminded of that [conversation].”
The conversation turns to what is hidden—the invisible labour behind things that appear effortless. It is a natural theme for a man who plays every instrument on his records. “People don’t see the work behind it,” he says. “You put a song out and they don’t know what that took to happen—the inspiration, the recording, all the things that go down with it, how much care and time you put into it. I’m doing everything by hand. I’m not using computers and samples. I’m playing all the instruments, doing all the creative, writing all the orchestrations, performing all the vocals. The [audience] hears it, it’s there for them to enjoy—but they don’t necessarily know all of the work that it took to make that happen.” To make it look easy, he adds, is the whole point.
Above Lenny Kravitz in Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso Tribute Duoface Small Seconds (Photo: courtesy of Jaeger-LeCoultre)
Lenny Kravitz in Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso Tribute Duoface Small Seconds (Photo: courtesy of Jaeger-LeCoultre)
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The word that recurs throughout any conversation with Kravitz—and that echoes through the Jaeger-LeCoultre aesthetic—is “timeless”. When he made his first album, Let Love Rule, in 1989, he made a deliberate choice to avoid the sonic fashions of the moment. The production techniques, the equipment, the arrangements—all of it was deliberately stripped of date stamps.
“I didn’t want to hear what year it was recorded in based on the techniques or the equipment or the style of what was being recorded at that time,” he says. “If you listen to Let Love Rule now, you don’t know if it was recorded in 1979, 1989, 1999, 2009, 2019, or today.”
That first album was, by his own account, hard won. “I was searching for the right sound by trying things that were not my style but were part of the process of finding myself,” he says. “I was offered record deals that I did not take because they wanted me to change who I was. I was living on the street, in my car, crashing on people’s floors and couches from the time I was 15. I needed that money, I needed that deal. But I wasn’t going to sell myself out. If I hadn’t turned them down, you and I would not be speaking today.”
The breakthrough came when “I stopped trying one day,” he says. “It just hit me. I heard it within myself, and it was nothing that I thought it would be. I trusted it, even though I wasn’t familiar with it. I came to realise that I’m just an antenna to pick up what ’s being transmitted to me. When I don’t hear something, I don’t try. I wait. It’s like surfing a wave.”
Above Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso Tribute Geographic (Photo: courtesy of Jaeger-LeCoultre)
Above Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso Tribute Geographic (Photo: courtesy of Jaeger-LeCoultre)
Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso Tribute Geographic (Photo: courtesy of Jaeger-LeCoultre)
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The same instinct governs how he knows when a song is finished. It is not a checklist nor a producer’s sign-off. It is, he says, entirely physical. “Your being tells you, your spirit tells you,” he explains. “There’s a lot of massaging that goes on—a lot of shaping, mixing, sometimes I’ll change things. But when it’s done, you just know it. You feel it. You know that you have everything there that you need to express the feeling. It breathes—it’s not overly crowded. It’s strong, it gives you everything that it needs. You just know it in your body.”
The same instinct runs through everything he does, including how he gets dressed. There is no mood board nor any stylist’s brief. “Even going onstage, you can put a bunch of wardrobe pieces on a rack that I’ve already chosen and say, ‘Okay, here’s your outfit for the night.’ Sometimes I’m not feeling it—and I have to feel it. It’s very spur of the moment.” It is why the Reverso works so well on his wrist paired with a shirtless Saint Laurent by Anthony Vaccarello outfit at the 2025 MTV Video Music Awards in New York. Ten minutes with Lenny Kravitz is, admittedly, not enough. But the more I sat with the conversation afterwards, the more I realised that everything he said circled back to the same conviction: that the only things worth creating are the ones you refuse to rush, compromise or to let anyone else define. He has reflected this belief his whole life through his music and style choices. The Reverso on his wrist is like everything else about him: a statement of passion for something he loves.
As the Regional Editor for Watches and Jewellery and Editorial Content Lead for Tatler GMT, Amrita Katara specialises in luxury watch and jewellery coverage across Asia, with expertise in editorial strategy, feature writing and interviews with industry leaders. Her past roles span luxury lifestyle media and client partnerships. Based in Mumbai, Amrita’s work bridges global trends and Asian market insights.
