Geography played an important role in the birth of the Swiss watch industry but it is the cultural power of their watchmaking that has made them what they are today
Today, Switzerland is the unassailable capital of fine watchmaking. Sure, Germany, Japan, and a few other countries across the globe are home to some truly exceptional manufactures, but in terms of size, scope and infrastructure, none of them can hold a candle to the Swiss.
In 2022, the Fédération de l'industrie horlogère suisse FH, a peak body for Swiss watchmaking, reported that the little landlocked country exported 24.8 billion francs worth of watches in 2022, putting the business on equal footing with the annual GDP of nations like Macau and Cyprus. For such small and idiosyncratic objects, watches are big business in Switzerland. But it wasn't always the case.
The history of watch (and clock) making dates back hundreds of years, and while Switzerland has dominated the last century or so, a surprising amount of significant innovation and development happened outside its pristine valleys and lakes. Commercially produced clocks first started emerging from Germany in the 16th century, and then, thanks to the series of breakthroughs and discoveries broadly characterized as the Scientific Revolution and the Age of Enlightenment, advances in the art, science and practice of timekeeping started popping up all over the European continent. In the Netherlands, Christiaan Huygens invented the pendulum clock and pioneered the balance spring. Huygens' work was further developed in the 18th century by English Clockmaker Thomas Mudge, who invented the lever escapement in 1754. Mudge's work was improved over the channel by the father of modern watchmaking, Abraham-Louis Breguet, whose contributions to the field of horology are legion. These three figures are essentially the founding fathers of modern timekeeping. None of them, you may have noticed, are Swiss.
Believe it or not, in the 18th century, a time when the English and French were making what was regarded as the finest pocket watches available, Swiss (and some German) makers specialized in lower quality, mass-produced pieces designed to evoke — and sometimes directly imitate — more famous makers. So how did the Swiss watch industry evolve from the makers of knock-off pocket watches in the 1700s to the benchmark for quality that it is today.
Born In The Valleys
The answer lies in how the watches were produced. The Swiss watch industry, largely imported from France in the form of Protestant refugees, was widely decentralized. In its earliest form, the Swiss watch industry was seasonal piece work, when agricultural workers spent the cold Swiss winters assembling components for sale to brands based in Geneva and elsewhere. Over the years, this informal network of suppliers became known as établissage, and this nascent form of industrialization allowed the Swiss to produce watches at a high volume. Over the course of the nineteenth century, this process became more centralized, with dedicated factories starting to pop up in the small villages of the Jura valley, the first being Auguste Agassiz's St. Imier facility founded in 1832, a company which would eventually become Longines. Even with industrialization, the Swiss industry stayed regional, rather than aggregating to the urban centers, and this culture of independence and decentralization is a core part of the identity of Swiss watchmaking today.
Mass Production And Global Destruction
Even as the Swiss system evolved, it faced challenges from a surprising new market — America. A new world built in a new way, America was quick to embrace the latest technology and production methods. At the heart of American industrialization was the railroad — a vast network of tracks crossing the country that drove progress before it. This progress, and the need to keep the trains on time, saw the Americans develop their own domestic watch industry and develop it at a pace that frightened the Swiss. Waltham quickly emerged as one of the largest names in American watchmaking, and indeed, in the nineteenth century, it was the largest watch factory in the world. The brand had a proprietary screw-making machine that could, with a single operator, churn out 17 screws a minute, a scale far eclipsing anything the Swiss were capable of. This American efficiency had a direct effect on the Swiss business, which had dropped by some 80% between 1872 and 1876. The ever-pragmatic Swiss saw the writing on the wall, and knew that if they didn't evolve, they wouldn't survive. So the Swiss evolved. Knowing that they couldn't compete with the scale of American production, the Swiss moved upmarket, refining their quality and offering a product competitive with American brands. High-end brands such as Patek Philippe marketed themselves to the American consumer, building their brand equity and already weaving the narrative magic of Swiss watchmaking. Then, something happened that ensured Swiss supremacy. It's hard to overstate the global impact of World War II, but it had several significant outcomes for the watch industry. The skills and machinery that allow for precise timing and engineering are in high demand in war. The American watchmaking industry was quickly commandeered, making watches for the armed forces, along with bomb timers and other precision instruments. In Europe, these manufacturing facilities were high-value targets for bombing raids; tragically, Lange's Glashütte facilities were completely destroyed on the 8th of May, 1945 — the last day of the war, and would not recover until after the reunification of Germany.
Switzerland, of course, remained strategically neutral throughout the war. One of the side effects of this was that the physical infrastructure of the Swiss watch industry remained intact. The fact that the Swiss did not need to rebuild their watchmaking capabilities was — along with the ongoing marketing of Swiss watches as hallmarks of quality and precision — a major factor in allowing the national industry to thrive in the post-war era.
A Looming Crisis
There's a reason watch design from the 1950s through to the 70s is referred to as the 'Golden Era', and that's because it was the historic high water mark, when the Swiss were not just at the top of their game, but on top of the world. Until Japan came along. Post-war Japan was undergoing a national and technological reconstruction unlike any the world had seen before. The 1964 Tokyo Olympics demonstrated this progress to the world, and the world watching these games saw the name Seiko attached to pioneering timekeeping equipment like a starting gun linked to a photo-finish camera. Five years later, Seiko again stunned the world with the Astron, the world's first quartz-regulated wristwatch.
In a narrative that should by now be familiar, Japan's technically advanced watch capabilities allowed for incredibly accurate, competitively priced watches to flood the market, putting the Swiss on the back foot once again. This 'Quartz Crisis' gutted the Swiss industry, especially at the lower end, and it wasn't until the 1990s that business was looking up.
The Mechanical Renaissance
Widely available quartz technology was the death knell of the mechanical watch as an everyday necessity. So the Swiss did what they've done many times in the past, reframe and adapt. Luxury watches had always been part and parcel of watchmaking, but the 1990s saw brands like Omega, IWC and TAG Heuer push themselves upmarket, and move from the everyday to the aspirational. Alongside this, there was an increased focus on the technique and prestige of fine Swiss watchmaking — it should come as no surprise that the 90s saw the tourbillon as a signifier of quality come back into vogue. This upmarket shift also presented new opportunities. The changing landscape and appetite for watches mean that talented designers like Daniel Roth and F.P. Journe, who, in different times, would have spent their lives working for one of the great houses, were able to set up shop independently, allowing for a new way forward, and inspiring subsequent generations of talented independents.
Switzerland And The World
Today, Switzerland stands as the single greatest repository of institutional knowledge and watchmaking infrastructure in the world. It is the beating heart of watch culture. But it does not stand alone. We've seen talented makers trained in Switzerland return to their home countries. Today there are world-renowned watchmakers working in Germany, Japan, The Netherlands, England, Finland and elsewhere. Geography played an important role in the birth of the Swiss watch industry, but it is the cultural power of Swiss watchmaking that has made them what they are today.
