Timex Watches - Casio Watches - Seiko Watches - TAG Watches - Alain Siberstein Watches - Audemars Piguet Watches - Blancpain Watches - Chopard Watches - Fortis Watches - Franck Mueller Watches - IWC Watches - Jaeger-Le Coultre Watches

Designer Watch History: 1 2 3 4 5

The history of Chopard dates back to the 19th century. In 1860, Louis-Ulysse Chopard founded his own watch factory in Sonvilier, in the Swiss Jura. Relying on his family tradition for watch making and his own innovative ideas, the company soon acquired an excellent reputation for its precision watches. The Chopard watches were so precise, that they became one of the main suppliers to the Swiss railway - known for their punctuality.

The swiss village of Grenchen was the home of Fortis when the company was founded by Walter Vogt in 1912, and it still is today. Mr. Vogt was a great innovator and pioneer: his original philosophy still forms the basis of today's company's policy. " ..the manufacture of good quality Swiss watches, in innovative designs at affordable prices.

Upstart watchmaker Franck Muller proclaims himself the "Master of Complications" and upon examining several of his finest masterpieces, one quickly understands why watch lovers around the world concur with this brash statement.

At a young age, Muller had firmly accomplished his Geneva based company as one of the world's most prestigious and fashionable watch brands.

Unlike the CEOs of other watch houses, Muller is a watchmaker himself and he designs every single movement himself, no matter how simple or complicated.

Founded in 1868 by Florentine Jones, a 27-year old American master watchmaker from Boston, the IWC Watch Company was established along the Rhine river at Schaffhausen, Switzerland hoping to benefit from the then newly built hydro-electric power facilities necessary to carry on mass production. The Jones calibre, the very first movement manufactured by IWC contained a wealth of advanced technical features. These included an elongated index to regulate the balance hairspring and a bimetallic cut balance to compensate for fluctuations in temperature.

The year was 1833 when thirty-year-old Antoine LeCoultre, son of Vallee de Joux watchmaker Jacques LeCoultre, opened a small factory in the town of Le Sentier. In 1844, LeCoultre revolutionized the watch industry with the invention of the millionometer, an instrument with which measurements of up to one thousandths of a millimeter could be made accurately. A little known fact about Jaeger-LeCoultre is that in addition to producing movements for its own watches, the company has also produced movements for famous watch houses such as Vacheron Constantin, Audemars Piguet, and IWC. As a matter of fact, in the early part of the 20th Century, Jaeger-LeCoultre even supplied ebauches to the great firm of Patek Philippe. Then as now, Jaeger-LeCoultre was considered one of the finest watchmakers in Switzerland.

The Company known today as Patek Philippe was founded in Geneva in 1839, by an exiled Polish Nobleman. Count Antoine Norbert de Patek and his compatriot Francois Czapek. The earliest watches were signed Patek, Czapek & co. until 1845 when Czapek left the partnership. Several years later the company was joined by French watchmaker , Jean Adrien Philippe, who later became the inventor of their famous stem-winding and hand setting mechanism, a modern and reliable concept. From May 1845 to January 1851 the firm was known as Patek & Co; Philippe lent his name to the company in 1851 when he became a full partner. Among the reasons for their initial success was the high standard of watch making and practicality of Philippe's new stem-winding system. In the early years of partnership.