Founded at Grenchen in 1912 by Walter Vogt, Fortis was the manufacturer that took John Harwood’s self-winding patent from drawing to production, building the first series automatic wristwatches from 1926 on an ebauche supplied by A. Schild. The firm has since worked largely in professional and aviation instruments.
Archives: Brands
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Breitling
Leon Breitling set up in Saint-Imier in 1884 to make counters and chronographs for industrial, scientific and sporting use rather than watches for general wear. Three generations of the family worked on the controls of the wrist chronograph, and the layout in universal use today, with timing separated from winding and reset separated from start, is credited to that work.
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Cartier
Founded in Paris in 1847 and known first as a jeweller, Cartier came to watchmaking through design rather than through movement manufacture, buying calibres from Edmond Jaeger and later from the European Watch and Clock Company. Its contribution to the wristwatch is formal: the case shapes it drew in the first decade of the twentieth century established that a watch for the wrist could be conceived as an object in its own right rather than a pocket watch made small.
