Frédérique Constant

Frédérique Constant was founded in 1988 in Geneva by the Dutch couple Peter Stas and Aletta Stas-Bax, who identified a space still little occupied by the Swiss watch industry: elegant mechanical watches, made to high quality standards, but offered at prices more accessible than those of the great historic maisons. The brand's name is a tribute to the founders' great-grandparents, Frédérique Schreiner and Constant Stas, the latter already active in the production of watch dials in the early twentieth century. The company philosophy was summed up from the start in the motto "Live your passion".

After a 1992 debut with six models fitted with outsourced Swiss movements, 1994 marked a key milestone with the launch of the Heart Beat collection, recognizable for the opening on the dial that reveals the balance wheel in motion — an aesthetic feature that would become the brand's distinctive signature. The path toward production independence continued in 2002 with the acquisition of Alpina Watches and culminated in 2004 with the launch of the first in-house manufactured caliber, a step that began a gradual production verticalization completed in 2006 with the opening of the new Plan-les-Ouates facility.

In 2016 Frédérique Constant became part of the Japanese Citizen Watch Company group, which took over ownership while leaving its headquarters, philosophy and management unchanged. The brand continues to independently develop manufactured calibers — more than thirty to date, including tourbillons, perpetual calendars and the monolithic silicon oscillator — remaining true to its original positioning as high-quality Swiss mechanical watchmaking at accessible prices, with annual production exceeding 100,000 units.