Mondia

Mondia was born in 1935 in Le Locle, in the heart of the Swiss Jura arc, on the initiative of watchmaker Paul Vermot, who registered the brand with the stated aim of producing "watches of every kind and watch movements." The early years were typical of a small manufacture of the period: steel or gold-plated cases, manually wound mechanisms, sober dials. The brand soon found a key market outside Swiss borders, particularly in Italy and Spain, where it built a loyal customer base over the following decades — a connection with the Italian peninsula that would become central again many years later, when an Italian company would take over the brand.

In the postwar period and through the 1950s and 1960s Mondia expanded its catalogue with wrist alarm watches (with the AS 1475 calibre, also marketed under the name "Supersuisso"), automatic models such as the Stellaris and Skystar, and recognizably designed cases like the Littoral and the 777 Aquaflex, with its so-called "chocolate bar" shape and chamfered sides. It was a period of growth that led the company, in 1969, to become part of the Movado-Zenith-Mondia holding, entering the orbit of one of the most important Swiss watch groups of the era and gaining access to Zenith calibres and components. The 1970s were probably the brand's most creative period, with distinctive models such as the Top Second chronograph (with an original seconds-reading system), the moon-themed Moonlander chronograph, and the unusual Memory, designed to remind the wearer of a parking-meter deadline. The 1972 takeover by the American Zenith Radio Corporation and the quartz crisis, which hit the whole Swiss industry in those years, complicated matters, however: in 1978 the group returned to the hands of Swiss investors linked to Dixi, and the Mondia brand, increasingly marginal in the group's strategies, ended up being shelved during the 1980s.

The brand was later taken over by the Italian company Sordi S.p.A. — available sources online do not agree on the exact year of the handover, variously given as between 1990 and 2003 — which over time structured the offering into two lines, Mondia Italy (a more accessible tier) and Mondia Swiss, the latter presented at Baselworld in 2016 with automatic movements and a more heritage-oriented positioning. The most recent turning point dates to February 2026, when the Italian company Diffusione Orologi (already the brand's distributor since 2025) acquired ownership, relaunching the brand as "Mondia Swiss" with the stated aim of expanding the sales network and showcasing the brand's nearly ninety years of history, including the legacy of the Top Second, still offered today in a contemporary version.