Swatch

Swatch was born in 1983 at the height of the quartz crisis, when cheap electronic watches made in Japan threatened to wipe out the Swiss watch industry. Under the direction of Ernst Thomke, head of ETA, engineers Elmar Mock and Jacques Müller developed a radically simpler watch: the plastic case became an integral part of the movement, ultrasonically welded, and the number of components was cut to just 51 — compared with the hundreds in a traditional mechanical watch — making assembly almost entirely automated. On 1 March 1983, in Zurich, the first twelve models were unveiled, with dials designed by graphic artists Bernard Müller and Marlyse Schmid, at a price of 50 Swiss francs: and so the name "Swatch" was born, a contraction of "Second Watch".

In 1985 entrepreneur Nicolas G. Hayek acquired a majority stake in the ASUAG-SSIH holding company, owner of Swatch and of many historic maisons, becoming its chairman the following year and later turning it into the Swatch Group. Hayek used the profits and visibility generated by Swatch watches to revive the entire Swiss watch industry, then brought to its knees by competition from low-cost Japanese quartz, restoring the competitiveness of brands such as Omega, Longines, Tissot and Blancpain, all of which are now part of the same group.

From a simple, affordable watch designed for a young audience, Swatch quickly became a cultural platform: as early as 1984 the brand tied its image to music, sport and street art, paving the way for decades of collaborations with artists — from Kiki Picasso to Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat — and, more recently, with the group's "sister" maisons, as shown by the global MoonSwatch phenomenon with Omega (2022) and the Scuba Fifty Fathoms project with Blancpain (2023).