Peak performance
Named after the highest point reached by a star in the night sky, Zenith has certainly scaled the heights of modern watchmaking throughout its 150 years of continuous innovation – an anniversary being marked with aplomb in 2015.
1865
At just 22, the founder of Zenith, Georges Favre-Jacot, revolutionises watchmaking by uniting all its professions beneath one roof, inventing the very concept of a “manufacture”. The factory is still located in the same building in Le Locle, in the Swiss Jura mountains.
1909
Louis Blériot is the first to cross the English Channel by air, wearing a Zenith on his wrist. He writes: “I cannot recommend it highly enough to people in search of precision.”
1947
Mahatma Gandhi’s silver Zenith alarm watch is stolen during a train journey to Kampur. Saddened to have lost one of the rare material objects he took everywhere (to signal his daily prayer times) he wrote of his loss. Six months later, the thief, consumed by remorse, returned the watch and begged for forgiveness. In 2009, Antiquorum auctioneers sold the alarm watch along with Gandhi’s famous spectacles and leather sandals to Indian billionaire Vijay Mallya for US$1.8 million.
1969
Zenith creates El Primero, the first-ever integrated automatic chronograph movement, which is still the only series-made calibre capable of measuring to the nearest tenth of a second, thanks to its high frequency of 5Hz (36,000 vibrations per hour).
1975
Following the decision of US parent company Zenith Radio Corp to limit production to quartz only, head of El Primero production Charles Vermot hides the plans, parts and tools for every mechanical movement in the workshop’s attic, to save them from destruction.
1984
Mechanical watches are again in demand, and Charles Vermot returns to Zenith the tools he had kept safely hidden. Production of the El Primero begins once more, and even Rolex uses it for its Daytona chronograph.
1994
Launch of the ultra-thin automatic Elite movement, the first ever to be developed using computer-aided design.
2000
Zenith joins the LVMH luxury group.
2003
Zenith’s revolutionary “Open” concept launched, revealing the fast-ticking escapement of the El Primero through a window in the dial. The Chronomaster 1969 in steel (pictured, £6,400) is still a bestseller, and rightly so.
2014
150th anniversary marked by the Academy Georges Favre-Jacot, which houses – what else? – a high-frequency El Primero, plus a fusée and chain mechanism. The helical shape of its fusée means the mechanism is able to keep the driving power perfectly stable, even during the wind-down of the barrel. The transmission chain comprises 575 parts and measures 18cm long.
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