Tissot
| Tissot SA
|
|
|---|---|
 |
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| legal form | Corporation |
| founding | 1853 |
| Seat | Le Locle , Switzerland |
| Branch | Watch manufacturer |
| Website | www.tissot.ch |
Tissot is a Swiss watch manufacturer. The company is based in Le Locle in the canton of Neuchâtel . It belongs to the Swatch Group .
Beginnings
Charles Félicien Tissot (1804–1873) and his son Charles-Emile (1830–1910) founded a workshop in Le Locle in 1853 which produced pocket watches with foreign parts . Charles-Emile often traveled to Russia and the USA to sell the products. His son Charles (1860–1936) took over the company in 1883 and continued the sales trips. Since 1915, wristwatches have also been made , which was done at the instigation of Charles' son Paul (1890–1951), who was now part of the company. In 1920 one went to own works.
Merger
When the company Charles Tissot & Fils lost the main buyers of its luxury watches on the Russian market due to the October Revolution, the collaboration with SA Louis Brandt & Frère, Omega Watch Co. began and in 1929 Tissot and Omega joined forces to form the Holding Société Suisse pour l, founded in 1930 'Industrie Horlogère SA (SSIH) together. Tissot now also used raw works from other manufacturers (so-called ébauches ), in 1957 a new factory building was built. In the 1970s, Tissot was also severely affected by the quartz crisis in the Swiss watch industry, which was triggered by the 1973 oil crisis , the emergence of inexpensive imports from the Far East and the delayed adaptation to quartz technology . In 1977 the branch factories in Peseux NE and La Chaux-de-Fonds were closed and the manufacture of our own watch movements was completely abandoned. Nevertheless, Tissot continued to make losses, so that in 1983 the company seemed to collapse. The salvation was finally brought about by the merger of SSIH and Allgemeine Schweizerische Uhren AG (ASUAG) to form the Swatch Group under the leadership of Nicolas Hayek in 1985, which led to a comprehensive reorganization of the Swiss watch industry (Tissot has since been purchasing high-quality case parts from its sister company Georges Ruedin SA ) and the development of new markets.
Collections
In 1971, Tissot brought out the Astrolon, a watch in which the ohms , gears , hands and escapement were largely made of plastic and consisted of only 52 parts. In the 1980s and 1990s, Tissot made a name for itself with a range of fashionable wristwatches with cases made of unusual materials, for example granite ("RockWatch", 1985) and wood ("WoodWatch", 1991).
Today the collection is divided into a total of seven product lines:
- T-Sport: sports and diving watches .
- T-Tactile (multifunctional watches): T-Navigator with world time zones and T-Touch with functions such as chrono (stop watch), alarm, thermo (temperature), meteo (absolute air pressure and tendency), altimeter (altitude), compass and date, which are carried out by Touching the watch glass ( touchscreen ).
- T-trend: men's and women's watches in different fashionable designs.
- T-Classic: Steel watches in mostly classic, restrained design.
- Heritage: retro- style watches . The series was launched on the occasion of the company's 150th anniversary in 2003.
- Pocket Watch: pocket watches .
- T-Gold: Jewelry watches with gold-plated cases, e.g. T. in retro style.
Many watches are offered in several technical variants. There are many models with both automatic and quartz movements and, in some cases, with solar cells as a power source. Most models are also offered in different designs, e.g. B. optionally with case made of stainless steel , gold, titanium , platinum or combinations of several metals (bicolor), with differently designed dials and different types of bracelets. Together with the ETA SA was until 2012 Movement Powermatic 80 developed that a power reserve of 80 hours and a separate regulator has.
Sponsorships
According to Tissot's own choice of words, there are now several sports partnerships, such as those for the Moto GP, NBA, Tour de France or the Superbike World Championship.
Historically, there has been an involvement in Formula 1 at least with Lotus (e.g. recognizable by the model 87 from the 1981 season) and with Alpine since 1969. The latter partnership was renewed in 2015, and as of the end of 2019 there were four Alpine special models in the Tissot watch program.
Trivia
In the film Ladykillers , Professor Marcus ( Alec Guinness ) wears a Tissot chronograph with totalizers in a tricompax arrangement, in Shaft (1971) John Shaft owns a PR 516 GL with a perforated bracelet, and James Stewart in Alfred Hitchcock's Das Fenster zum Hof (1954) looks also on a Tissot. The same applies to Didi Hallervorden as Hans Immer in Didi the doppelganger , shortly before he shoots Bruno Koop in his pub.
literature
- Estelle Fallet: TISSOT - 150 years of history 1853–2003. Self-published by Tissot in 2003
Web links
- Tissot website
- Hélène Pasquier: Tissot. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
Individual evidence
- ^ Helmut Kahlert , Richard Mühe , Gisbert L. Brunner , Christian Pfeiffer-Belli: wrist watches: 100 years of development history. Callwey, Munich 1983; 5th edition, ibid 1996, ISBN 3-7667-1241-1 , p. 492.
- ^ GA Berner: Illustrated specialist dictionary of watchmaking , keyword astrolon . Retrieved January 9, 2012.
- ↑ Tissot World Sports Partnerships. In: Tissot. Tissot, accessed February 3, 2020 .