Some notes on the oldest watch brands – Perrelet 1777
Perrelet is named after Abraham Louis Perrelet (1729 - 1826), horologist and "inventor". The date 1777 is sort of made up and must be taken just as reference, since not much of Perrelet's origin is documented. We'll get to that.
Born as a son of farmers and carpenters, he was apparently gifted with a certain degree of inventiveness and mechanical skills so allegedly went into watchmaking apprenticeship at the age of 20. It looks like his horology master was no good, so according to myth he went on his own and taught himself horology.
According to the Perrelet website, with 24 Abraham Louis moved to Paris to study with his renowned namesake Breguet, who "
soon discovered the unique talent of this young watchmaker". I smell marketing here because I couldn't confirm this early contact between the two Abraham Louises with other common internet sources. Be that as it may, Perrelet was a gifted watchmaker, he invented and developed a number of new functions to optimize timepieces. He was the first in Le Locle to manufacture clocks with a cylinder gear and duplex escapement as well as with a perpetual calendar and equation of time. He created the ebauche and perfected the gear train, pinions, gears, escapement and winding mechanism. Among other things, he also invented tools and machines for the production and assembly of watches.
Foremost however, Perrelet is credited with the invention of the first self-winding automatic mechanism. Not without controversy though, since Hubert Sarton apparently also developed the mechanism around the same time.
In 1777, Professor Horace-Bénédict de Saussure, one of the founders of the Société des Arts de Genève, went on a research trip to Neuchâtel to visit watch factories and watchmakers. He informed the committee that a certain Mr. Perrelet, a watchmaker in Le Locle, had constructed a watch that wound itself in the pocket by the wearer's steps and then did not stop for eight days. Professor de Saussure's personal notes read: "
I have just come from Mr. Perrelet, inventor of a watch that winds itself solely by the movements of its wearer...". As with almost every invention, there were initial difficulties, de Saussure continues: “
He (Perrelet) had to redesign the first watch so that the winding mechanism did not overload the spring and thereby damage it. For example, a man's watch was broken due to his violent movements as he ran to the post office. He developed a mechanical separation of the winding mechanism and spring, a project that turned out to be anything but easy, but was solved to satisfaction." But that is not proof that Perrelet was the inventor. In fact his watch probably used a weight pivoting at the side of the movement. The first drawing and accurate description of an automatic watch with a central rotor was created in 1778 by the watchmaker Hubert Sarton and that design is attributed to him. In any case, it's proof of Perrelet's notable work. Breguet did frequent Perrelet at some point allegedly acquiring one of his watches and trying to improve the automatic mechanism.
Abraham Louis wasn't the last Perrelet doing watchmaking, his grandson Louis-Frédéric Perrelet (1781–1852) was trained by his grandfather and went into business in Paris later becoming Horologist to the court. Louis-Frédéric invented marine watches with measuring instruments and a split-second precision chronograph. Other successors remained in the watch business but the dedication slowly dwindled and died.
Until 1993, the rights of the Perrelet name were held by their direct descendants, who still live in the Neuchâtel Jura today. In 1993, the Ticino industrialist Flavio Audemars bought the naming rights. In 1995, the Perrelet brand returned to the watch world with a reinterpretation of the automatic movement drive: equipped with a double rotor with a flywheel visible on the dial side, Perrelet tried to be successful with a single product strategy.
Moving forward the brand had to fight against overpowering competitors. Over the next decade, Perrelet suffered financial difficulties and was relaunched one more time in 2004 by the Festina Group. Acquired in 2004 by Miguel Rodriguez of the
Festina Group, appointed Marc Bernhardt as CEO of Perrelet in 2007, and under his direction, the company released a few highly regarded watches. These included watches with retrograde, jumping hour, and double-rotor complications. Introduction of these unique complications was met with resounding success compared to the initial 1995 revival.
Perrelets develops and produces movements and caliber entirely within its workshops. Previously Perrelet had always used ETA base movements for its timepieces. When the company was acquired in 2004, owner of the H5 group / Festina Group, Miguel Rodriguez, purchased the STM holding group, giving Perrelet access to the movement manufacturer Soprod. Perrelet can also take advantage of relationships with its sister companies in the Group, such as MM Ineltec, MHVJ and Astral, which produce various components for watch movements.
Perrelet's watches today place themselves in the sub 10k range. They show a notable lack of originality and univocal style, mostly capitalizing on their double rotor thing. Well, I don't like them. Alongside fairly simple designs reminiscent of Daniel Wellington and lazy notes such as "open heart dials", there's some fugly badass watches I keep asking myself "who buys this stuff"?
