Once upon a time: Haute Horlogerie

“Time is the pure form of inner intuition,” enthused Immanuel Kant over 200 years ago. And he is right! When the hours pass and the minutes elapse that is no reason for sadness. Especially not if you are keeping the time using a choice example of Haute Horlogerie. A ticking work of art and an exclusive piece of jewellery in one.

Horlogerie history

Today, wristwatches for men are often the only piece of jewellery that they wear and of which they approve. That was not always the case. In their early days, wristwatches were purely a ladies’ domain. When in 1812 Abraham Louis Breguet made the first example it was intended for a woman. Caroline Murat, Queen of Naples and Napoleon’s youngest sister with the chosen lady. Gentlemen showed little interest. To them it was after all too dainty to wear a watch on a wristband. They remained loyal to the pocket watch until the start of the 20th century. Only when people realised that in certain situations pocket watches were impractical did opinions change. The first wristwatch wearers were thus members of the German Navy, who were already being supplied with the practical timepieces in 1880. In 1904, Louis Cartier designed the Cartier Santos, a watch for pilots. It was the first with a leather strap. Ultimately, the use of wristwatches became increasingly widespread, not just in the military. They became an everyday companion, chic and practical at the same time.

Mechanical versus quartz

Haute Horlogerie is in fact a countermovement to the so-called ‘Quartz Crisis’. Up until the end of the 1970s, quartz watches were the hot seller. They were not only very accurate, but also inexpensive and easy to produce. And precisely that was the crux of the matter. They were quickly copied in the Far East, with cheap models fervently being made and flooding the market. The existence of many Swiss watchmakers was at risk. Surprisingly this low was followed by an incredible high that endures to this day. The mechanical watch celebrated its renaissance and traditional Swiss watchmakers in particular registered an extraordinary level of demand. First Blancpain and Chronoswiss conquered the market with new models, followed by Cartier and other major watch brands.

Please read the complete article in our print issue of THE FINEST EMIRATES, published in September 2014.

Yours,

The-Finest-Emirates-Team

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