Vacheron Constantin
| VACHERON CONSTANTIN, Branch of Richemont International SA
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| legal form | Corporation |
| founding | 1755 |
| Seat | Plan-les-Ouates , Switzerland |
| Branch | Watch manufacturer |
| Website | www.vacheron-constantin.com |
Vacheron Constantin , also Vacheron & Constantin (Genève) , is a Swiss watch manufacturer in Geneva . The company, founded in 1755, is the oldest continuously operating watch manufacturer in the world and is now part of the Richemont Group.
history
18th century
In 1755 the 24-year-old master watchmaker Jean-Marc Vacheron opened his workshop in Geneva with an apprentice. As a cabin animal , Vacheron manufactured exquisite clocks, the reputation of which soon spread beyond the country's borders. The company changed its name to Abraham Vacheron-Girod for the first time in 1785 , after Jean-Marc's son, Abraham Vacheron, had succeeded his father as owner of the watch workshop.
Until the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789, Abraham Vacheron had some of the French nobility as customers.
19th century
In 1810, the company was renamed Vacheron-Chossat under the management of Jacques-Barthélémy Vacheron, who handed over the watch manufacture from his father Abraham Vacheron in 1810 . The businessman François Constantin joined forces with Jacques-Barthélémy Vacheron in 1819 and they founded the new company Vacheron & Constantin . Constantin traveled all over Europe for decades and opened numerous stores for the products of Vacheron et Constantin . The first representations in the United States were established in 1830, at Jean Magnin in New York and at Brey in New Orleans . He also coined the company's motto, which is still valid today: "Faire mieux si possible, ce qui est toujours possible" (in German: Improve if possible, whatever is possible).
In 1839, the history of watchmaking as a whole was radically changed with the appointment of Georges Auguste Leschot as technical director. He developed and built the first machines that enabled the series production of watch parts, in particular the pantograph . Until then, no watch part could be exchanged for another, as all parts were made manually and therefore inevitably showed irregularities. By supplementing manual work with machine production, Vacheron et Constantin revolutionized watch production and also enabled a considerable acceleration in the marketing of the now industrially manufactured products.
After François Constantin's death in 1854, his son Jean-François took over management of the company. In 1864 the first own sales outlets were set up in the USA. The company was renamed César Vacheron & Co in 1867 and Charles Vacheron & Cie two years later . After Charles Vacheron's early death at the age of 25, the company was founded in Vve under the management of the two widows of Charles and Jacques-Barthélémy, Laure Vacheron-Pernessin and Cathérine-Étiennette Vacheron . César Vacheron & Cie and renamed Vacheron & Constantin for the last time in 1877 .
On December 18, 1880, Vacheron Constantin registered a “ Maltese cross ” as the brand's logo and since then this has been added to the name as a trademark and trademark. It is a replica of a small wheel on the barrel cover that used to be used to limit the winding of the spring, thereby improving the speed of the watch.
20th century
Well-known pocket watches from Vacheron Constantin are the King Fouad and the King Farouk , which are named after their buyers.
The cooperation with the raw material supplier Jaeger-LeCoultre led in 1938 under the JLC Marketing Director Georges Ketterer and the JLC Administrative Director Paul Lebet to a merger of the two companies in the holding company SAPIC . One of the directors of Vacheron Constantin, Henri Wallner, became executive director of SAPIC. Another managing director of Vacheron Constantin, Charles Constantin, remained in his role. Since the supply of raw works was to be carried out by the workshops in Sentier from now on , the raw works developer from Vacheron Constantin, Albert Pellaton , left the company. Charles Constantin sold his majority share in 1940 to Georges Ketterer.
In 1944, what was then the thinnest wristwatch in the world (caliber JLC903 or AP2003) was developed for Audemars Piguet , which was later also used by Vacheron Constantin (VC1003). The administrative director Paul Lebet died in 1945, his position was transferred to Georges Ketterer. The CEO Jacques-David LeCoultres died in 1948, and his successor was also Georges Ketterer. Charles Constantin resigned in 1949 in favor of his nephew Léon Constantin. With the death of Henri Wallner in 1951, all previous directors of Vacheron Constantin left the management. In the 1950s, watches were sold in the USA by Vacheron & Constantin-LeCoultre , a subsidiary of the Longines- Wittnauer Group.
In 1965, Georges Ketterer left the holding company SAPIC as managing director in order to manage only Vacheron & Constantin from now on . Ketterer received the remaining amount from its stake in SAPIC in the form of a minority stake in Jaeger-LeCoultre. After Georges Ketterer's death in 1969, his son Jacques Ketterer took over the management. In the late 1970s has been and characters in the company name and also dials dropped.
The company was sold to former Saudi Oil Minister Ahmed Zaki Yamani in 1985 and Claude Daniel Proellochs became director. In 1996 Vacheron Constantin was sold to the Vendôme Luxury Group , now Richemont . With the acquisition of Haut de Gamme , a manufacturer of watch movements , Vacheron Constantin finally became a watch manufacturer again in 1998 .
The best-known wristwatch models are those with the caliber VC4261 with minute repeater , the Ultra-Plate with the hand-wound caliber VC1003 (1.64 mm high) with its partially skeletonized versions, the Kallista , the most expensive wristwatch in the world at the time, and the slimmest movement automatic winding through a full rotor, the caliber VC1120 (based on JLC920 with 2.45 mm height), which has been in use since 1967 until today, and the caliber VC1170 (based on Lassale K2000 with 2.08 mm height), which is temporarily in use in was used in the last decade of the 20th century.
21st century
In 2005, Vacheron Constantin celebrated its 250th anniversary, making it the oldest watch manufacturer in the world that has been operating without interruption since it was founded. On this occasion, the Tour de l'Île wristwatch with 16 complications and 834 individual parts was released (see Grande Complication ). The Vacheron Constantin company, which is part of the Richemont Group, currently employs around 400 people worldwide, most of whom work in the factory in Plan-les-Ouates in the canton of Geneva . The brand is represented in around 80 countries around the world; it is sold through 15 exclusive boutiques and a network of around 500 sales outlets.
Collections
- Painted
- Patrimony
- Overseas
- Historiques
- Métiers d'Art
- Ladies timepieces
- Cabinotiers
- Fiftysix
literature
- Franco Cologni: In the footsteps of Vacheron Constantin. Éditions Flammarion, Paris 2005, ISBN 2-08-021039-4 .
- Anton Kreuzer : Vacheron & Constantin. Klagenfurt 1992.
- C. Lambelet, L. Coen: The World of Vacheron Constantin. La Conversion, Lausanne 1992.
- In Geneva since 1755. Vacheron & Constantin, Geneva 1973.
Web links
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. 488.
- ^ Helmut Kahlert, Richard Mühe, Gisbert L. Brunner, Christian Pfeiffer-Belli: wrist watches: 100 years of development history. 1996, p. 488.
- ↑ Helmut Kahlert, Richard Mühe, Gisbert L. Brunner, Christian Pfeiffer-Belli: Wristwatches: 100 Years of Development History 1996, p. 488.
- ↑ a b c d e f g Franco Cologni: Secrets of Vacheron Constantin . Editions Flammarion, 2005, ISBN 978-2-08-030502-2 . P. 139ff.