Adding a personal touch to your gift is easy! How well do you know your luxury watch brands? The timepiece industry is populated by many dozens of companies โ a handful of them still independent, many others now members of a larger luxury-goods conglomerate โ each with its own unique origin story, historical highlights, and technical and aesthetic brand DNA. Here we've gathered what we consider the current top 52 luxury watch brands that should be on the radar of watch enthusiasts and given you a brief rundown of what makes each one special.
In the interest of being informative and transparent , we've divided them into sections: brands owned by the two major Swiss luxury groups Swatch and Richemont , brands within the French LVMH Group, Japanese Citizen Group, and the small Swiss concern Sowind; the largest, best-known independent companies, and the leading brands among the rest of the independents.
We've even added a little tidbit of trivia for each brand. A subfamily based on a particular model from the late s, called Fifty Fathoms Bathyscaphe, has a more modest, retro look and has become a popular collection on its own.
Abraham-Louis Breguet was one of the most important figures in the history of watchmaking and his signature invention, the tourbillon, finds some of its most creative and ambitious expressions in the modern Breguet watch brand, whose history can be traced all the way back to Founded: original , current.
Notable models: Senator, Seventies, Pano, Spezialist. Founded: company , watchmaking. Pierre Jaquet-Droz , founder of the modern watchmaking house that bears his name, was not only one of the most renowned watchmakers of the 18th century; he was also a pioneer in the development of automatons, which are now considered the first mechanical computers. Headquarters: La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland.
