Longines

Longines was founded in 1832 in Saint-Imier, in the Bernese Jura, on the initiative of Auguste Agassiz, who started an établissage business — assembling components supplied by local craftsmen — intended for export. In 1867 Agassiz's nephew, Ernest Francillon, brought the entire production together under one roof for the first time, in a factory built in an area locally known as "Les Longines" (the long meadows along the Suze river), from which the brand takes its name. That same year saw the birth of the first caliber produced entirely in-house, the 20A, with a lever escapement, which was awarded a prize at the Paris World's Fair: a debut that laid the foundations of a manufacturing tradition that has continued uninterrupted for more than 190 years.

In 1889 Longines registered with the International Bureau its famous winged hourglass logo, which according to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) is the oldest registered trademark still used unchanged by a company active in its original sector: a symbol that for over a century has appeared, virtually unchanged, on every dial and every movement made by the manufacture. At the same time, starting in 1878 with the development of the 20H chronograph caliber, Longines built a solid reputation in high-precision sports timekeeping, which led it to become the official timekeeper of numerous disciplines: from the pioneering transatlantic flights and aviation feats of the 1920s and 1930s — linked to figures such as Charles Lindbergh and Amelia Earhart — to international equestrian competitions, as well as alpine skiing, gymnastics, archery and, more recently, Formula 1 in the 1980s.

Over the course of the twentieth century Longines went through ups and downs, like much of the Swiss watch industry during the quartz crisis, until it joined in 1983 the conglomerate that in 1988 would give rise to the Swatch Group, of which it is today one of the flagship brands in the "upper-medium" segment. Since then the company has chosen to focus firmly on its own historical heritage, reinterpreting in a contemporary key models and complications drawn from its vast archive — preserved at the Longines Museum in Saint-Imier — while continuing to develop modern movements, often based on ETA and Swatch Group platforms, enhanced with silicon hairsprings and careful finishing.