60 years ago in 1955, Vacheron Constantin was preparing to commemorate the 170th anniversary. Until an ancient "master and apprentice" accident occurred, it allowed the brand to temporarily change its plan in favor of the commemoration of the 200th anniversary of the founding of the brand, thus dating back to 1755.
This mysterious pact is an apprenticeship contract signed in Geneva in 1755 by a watchmaker named Jean-Marc Vacheron and a teenager named Esaie Hetier. The signing of an apprenticeship contract in Geneva at that time was a very important event. It represented that the identity and status of the watchmaker were recognized and respected.
This contract not only added 30 years to the brand's history, but also led to Abraham Vacheron, originally identified as the founder of the Vacheron Constantin brand, replaced by his father, Jean-Marc Vacheron.
This is Vacheron Constantin history of a funny story, rarely mentioned by the brand, but it is a true portrayal of the brand's fate. Vacheron Constantin 260 years of history, not consistent, as the history of the twists and turns repeated, Vacheron Constantin has also gone through many of the displaced, and even the brand has almost disappeared in the dust of history.
Here we talk about Vacheron Constantin this 260-year ups and downs of the story.
Early eighteenth Century Switzerland is not a single nation unified nation, but by the neighboring France, Germany, Italy Protestants immigrants form. In fact, there was no unified Germany and Italy at that time, and all of them were still some of the duchy's cities. Switzerland was also home to many duchy and there was no federal government of today.
Under such a historical background, the watchmakers in the era of Jean-Marc Vacheron can walk freely in the French-speaking, German-speaking and Italian-speaking regions of mainland Europe and sell their works to princes and kings of various countries. Vacheron's clockworks business is not bad at home.
By the second half of the eighteenth century, the situation in the European continent was in turmoil, especially the French Revolution and the subsequent Napoleonic all-out war, which caused the decline of the traditional European royal family and severely affected the watchmaker's business. It was such a difficulty that Abraham Vacheron was in charge of Vacheron Constantin.
Fortunately, in the era of political instability, the industrial technological revolution started with a steam engine and brought a dividend: a huge bourgeoisie was born outside the royal family and aristocracy, bringing another market to the luxury watch business.
Abraham Vacheron's son took over the family business early in the nineteenth century and needed frequent trips to France and Italy to market his own product. To keep this transnational business going, Francis Constantin, a merchant-turned-entrepreneur, helped himself with the multinational business.
So in 1819 Francios Constantin joined the watchmaking workshop of the Vacheron family as a partner. The name of the workshop was officially changed to Vacheron & Constantin. Vacheron Constantin's brand name was officially established until today.
Francios Constantin is a good business associate and almost thirty years before he joined Vacheron Constantin, he traveled all over the world and opened up a broader international market for Vacheron Constantin. Vacheron Constantin watches and clocks in the first half of the nineteenth century, one after another appeared in China, India, Russia and the United States market.
After the Civil War was over, the emerging nation of the United States made great strides in its economy and rapid growth of the bourgeoisie. It quickly became the largest exporter of Swiss watches and brought huge profits to Swiss watchmakers. Vacheron Constantin also enjoyed the bonus during this period. Later, the clocks and watches made by Americans began to snatch the Swiss business, so that the rapid decline of Swiss watch exports, but this is not considered the most terrible.
During the ten years after World War I was rebuilt, Vacheron Constantin spent a very good time at Francious Constantin's descendants of Charles Constantin. The brand image of senior watches impressed the leaders of various countries and the royal family. This period also left a lot of fine work.
By the late 1920s, the Great Depression originated in the United States and spread rapidly to the entire Western world. Work was stopped in factories, workers were unemployed, food was surplus and peasants abandoned farming ... Human economic activities plunged into a vicious circle of terror. The Great Depression destroyed the entire world economy, almost destroyed the Swiss watch industry, and hit a "quartz crisis" as high as in the 1970s.
Some watch brands completely closed; some are holding the group heating, such as Omega and Tissot set up SSIH; Patek Philippe also from the hands of the founder in this period; and Vacheron Constantin brand almost disappeared!
As a luxury watch business during this period of eating and drinking are difficult, it is obvious is a useless life. Charles Constantin also started the process of organizing watchmakers to maintain their equipment to pass the time, but in 1933 all the clockworkers who could do nothing were stopped.
The Great Depression also laid the fuse for World War II. Under Hitler's strongman rule, Germany diverted people's attention to the depression and clamored to regain their lost territory and revive their national prestige to report the failure of the First World War. Storm clouds once again shrouded the entire European continent. At this time, Charles Constantin is nearing exhaustion, and there is no way to revive Vacheron Constantin.
In a pamphlet prepared in 1935 to mark the 150th anniversary of the brand, Charles Constantin reluctantly wrote: "Although the future is full of hope, the problem of lack of money now has to be solved ... The trouble is that I can not find a solution.
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By 1938, after some time of negotiation and bargaining, Charles Constantin finally chose to sell most of Vacheron Constantin's equity to another watch brand - Jaeger LeCoultre. Unlike Omega and Tissot's SSIH heating, Vacheron Constantin was Do not go down and be acquired by the family!
This is the biggest change in Vacheron Constantin history, the acquisition agreement requires Vacheron Constantin since then must only use the Jaeger-LeCoultre movement and parts, cut off from the previous cooperation with other manufacturers; Jaeger LeCoultre also assigned to the management team. But Vacheron Constantin brand value is finally valued by the product family, and finally choose to retain, take a business, two brand strategy.
Vacheron Constantin brand escaped the history of the devouring nest quietly, did not disappear in the dust of history, eventually caught up with the history of the wheel rolling forward.
Jaeger-LeCoultre output management team Georges Ketterer is also one of the plot's shareholders, in the ensuing 1940, he acquired the shares of the Constantin family, became the largest shareholder Vacheron Constantin; Founder family since then quit Vacheron Constantin, and the brand No longer
This article is reprinted from the Chinese watch network, if you have any questions, please send an email to to contact us.
Vacheron Constantin in this revolution, in fact, has lost its history. Although the brand can be retained, but as the core of the mechanical watch movement can only use other people's products, even if their own traditional accumulation of broken; together with the departure of the founder family, making intangible brand spirit has changed. Vacheron Constantin in the 1950s and 1960s was actually Vacheron Constantin by Georges Ketterer.
Georges Ketterer was a very fortunate man who acquired the brand at the time of Vacheron Constantin's hardest times and soon caught up with the post-World War II economic recovery. With the help of the United States, Europe rapidly rebuilt, Europe and the United States enjoyed rapid economic growth in the two decades after the war, and the increase in the consumption demand of the middle class drove the growth of Swiss mechanical watches. Vacheron Constantin regained market reputation and high income.
Nowadays, there are a large number of antiques listed on all major auction houses as the products of Georges Ketterer's age. The Vacheron Constantin brand's fame and status are also mainly contributed by these 30 to 30 years.
After Georges Ketterer's death, his descendants seemed less interested in running watch brands, first selling a majority stake in JCDecaux to a German company in 1980; in 1987, he again sold Vacheron Constantin shares from Sovereign Investment Fund in the Arab World.
In this way, Vacheron Constantin in the hands of Arab investors lost ten years later, was peaked in 1996, income in the bag. Coincidentally, four years later calendar peak will also buy back the family, Vacheron Constantin and Jaeger family really fate, after a lapse of many years together again.
However, Vacheron Constantin at this time no longer need to use the Jaeger family movement and parts. Because LeBron Little Lopez was a favorite of the Vacheron Constantin brand, in 1998 Vacheron Constantin purchased the HDG, a movement factory in the Swiss watchmaking Jura valley and renamed it VCVJ to develop and manufacture movements for Vacheron Constantin .
The story Here we look at Vacheron Constantin, now part of Richemont, another brand that was reinvented, the Vacheron Constantin, the Vacheron, the Constantin, and the Ketterer's Vacheron Constantin.
This article is reprinted from the Chinese watch network, if you have any questions, please send an email to to contact us.
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