Zenith (watchmaker)

Zenith SA is a French owned Swiss luxury watch manufacturing subsidiary of LVMH. The company was started in 1865 by Georges Favre-Jacot in Le Locle in the canton of Neuchâtel[2] and is one of the oldest continuously operating watchmakers. Favre-Jacot invented the concept of "in house movements", believing that only through control of the entire watchmaking process could the highest quality be achieved. Zenith was purchased by LVMH in November 1999, becoming one of several brands in its watch and jewelry division, which includes TAG Heuer and Hublot. Benoit de Clerck is the company's current president and CEO.

History

In 1865, Georges Favre-Jacot (1843 – 1917) began manufacturing watches in Le Locle, Switzerland.[2] After witnessing the success of American watch companies that exhibited at the Centennial Exposition in 1876, he opened a watchmaking factory.[3]

Movements

El Primero

The El Primero calibre, when it was first unveiled on January 10, 1969, was the first high frequency automatic chronograph movement,[8][9] and certainly the one to put Zenith Watches on the map. One of the original watchmakers who worked on the movement, Charles Vermot, saved the calibre when the owners of the brand decided to abandon the idea of a mechanical chronograph and focus on Quartz timepieces in 1975.[10] While all the tools used to manufacture the calibre were being dumped or sold, Vermot gathered all the necessary technical plans and tools and hid them in a walled-off attic at the Zenith manufacture to protect the El Primero for future generations. The movement came back.[8][9][11]

The movement was one of the first automatic chronograph movements and has a frequency of 36,000 vibrations per hour (5 Hz). Zenith's El Primero movement was used by Rolex from 1988 to 2000 for the Rolex Daytona chronograph. El Primero movement's high rate allows a resolution of 1/10 of a second and a potential for greater positional accuracy over the more common standard frequency of 28,800 vibrations per hour (4 Hz).[12] The El Primero was honoured with a 2012 release of the El Primero Stratos Flyback Striking 10th, limited to 1,969 pieces, referring to the original 1969 release date, that housed the same 36,000 vph movement and a sub-dial measuring in tenths of a second to make a complete rotation every ten seconds.[13][14]

Elite

In 1991, Zenith began development of a modular, slim, adaptable, and multipurpose in-house movement that could be housed within a wide variety of timepieces across their various collections. Led by technical director Jean-Pierre Gerber, and aided by the manufacturer's first utilization of CAD, they developed an ultra-thin movement that ranged from 2.83mm to 6.20mm of thickness, depending on the inclusion of complications. Operating at 28,800 vibrations per hour (4 Hz), and featuring an annual Glucydur balance wheel, a self-compensating balance spring, and an automatic winding system with a large diameter tungsten carbide rotor mounted on ball bearings, the movement was designed for precision timekeeping that required minimal maintenance. When introduced at Baselworld in 1994, it was awarded the title of "Best Movement of the Year".[18]

Under Jean-Frédéric Dufour tenure as CEO, the company decided to replace the Elite movement in their entry-level wristwatches with a more economical Sellita movement, and further develop a double-barrel version of the Elite for higher-end models. Upon Dufour's departure to Rolex in 2014, incoming CEO Aldo Magada reversed this decision, and the Elite is still being built by the company today.

The first wristwatches to include the movement were released in a similarly named Elite collection, which remain a feature of the present-day collection. Additionally, the movement has been a feature of the Defy collection.

type	Wholly owned subsidiary
founder	Georges Favre-Jacot
area served	Worldwide
key people	Benoit de Clerck (current CEO)‡R1R‡
industry	Luxury watches
parent	LVMH
foundation	Le Locle, Neuchâtel, Switzerland, 1865
location city	Le Locle
location country	Switzerland
homepage	www.zenith-watches.com

Zenith (watchmaker)

History

Georges Favre-Jacot

Chronometry

Collections

Movements

El Primero

Elite

Gallery

See also

External links

References