Vertex

A company with deep ties to the British military, Vertex was founded in 1912 by London native Claude Lyons (who famously set the business up with a £1,000 loan from his father-in-law).

Conceived amid the turmoil of WWI, the brand has a colorful history: with Lyons registering the business in La Chaux-de-Fonds in 1916 and obtaining exclusive import rights to Movado in 1927. In the 1940s, following Lyons’s son-in-law Henry Lazarus’s appointment to the British Army, Vertex began producing (along with several prominent Swiss watch brands) a waterproof watch suitable for military action - the Cal 59.

Although the fallout of the Quartz Crisis caused the brand to shutter its doors in 1972, Don Cochrane, the founder’s great-grandson, reincorporated the Vertex name in 2015. 

A revitalization of the firm responsible for making one of the historic “Dirty Dozen” watches commissioned by the British Military of Defence, the Vertex brand as we know it today, was reintroduced in 2015. A year later, the brand unveiled the M100 - a modern take on the symbolic Cal 59 field watch issued to Allied troops ahead of D-Day.

Other important collections for the brand include the MP45 and M60 Aqualion: Vertex’s take on the monopusher chronograph and heritage-inspired diver, respectively.

M100A, M100AC, M60 Aqualion ND, MP45 Heritage, MP45 Arctic