Herbelin

Michel Herbelin founded the eponymous brand in 1947 in Charquemont, a village in the French Haut-Doubs just a few kilometers from the Swiss border, in one of the areas historically densest with small watchmaking manufactures in France. Herbelin, who had learned the rudiments of watchmaking from his uncle at a very young age, started the business together with his wife Jeanne, initially producing watches under the "Impec" brand focused on precision, before developing in the 1960s a genuine mechanical line under his own name.

In the 1970s, with the arrival of Japanese quartz, the brand went through, like most of the watchmaking industry of the Jura arc, the so-called quartz crisis. Herbelin faced it by converting to the production of quartz watches with Swiss movements, transforming itself into a company with a more markedly fashion-oriented approach and thus securing its survival: a turning point also driven by the arrival in the company, in those years, of the founder's sons, Jean-Claude and Pierre-Michel, who joined their father in developing the brand's style and business.

In 1988 the launch of the Newport line, inspired by the world of sailing, marked the brand's rebirth and financed, in the following years, a return to mechanical watchmaking as well. Today Herbelin remains an independent, family-run company, now in its third generation, still headquartered in Charquemont — where in 1991 a new facility of about 3,000 square meters was built — with a positioning the brand itself describes as accessible luxury, combining Swiss components (Ronda, Sellita, ETA movements) with French artisanal assembly.