GIRARD PERREGAUX

Girard-Perregaux, as we know it now, has origins reaching back to 1791. The company has been dedicated to producing high-quality timepieces since its inception under the guidance of Jean-Francois Bautte.

In 1793, he teamed up with Jacques-Dauphin Moulinie to form Moulinie & Bautte, a company that still exists today.

Bautte, on the other hand, broke away a few years later and founded his own firm in Geneva. He gathered all of the watchmaking crafts together under one roof and quickly established himself as one of Europe's leading watchmakers.

After Bautte's death in 1837, his son Jacques Bautte and his son-in-law Jean-Samuel Rossel established the Jean-Francoise Bautte & Cie Company. And the company kept making watches.

While the preceding may not appear to be significant at this time, other parts were still falling into place. In 1852, Swiss watchmaker Constant Girard founded his own firm, Girard & Cie.

Four years later, in 1856, Girard married Marie Perregaux, and the firm was renamed Girard Perregaux, which was the first relic of the current name.

The two enterprises, Girard Perregaux and Jean-Francoise Bautte & Cie (Constant Girard-Gallet really acquired the Bautte company) were not united until 1906, resulting in the contemporary Girard-Perregaux. The firm bought a building at La Chaux-de-Fonds, which it still occupies.

The Kering Group currently owns the brand, which has surged forward in the field of innovation and creation. It boasts hundreds of patents and is constantly at the forefront of intricate watches like as tourbillons, repeaters, and sonneries, as well as high-jeweled masterpieces.

The factory is fully integrated and produces all of its own timepieces.

Constant Girard altered the name of his firm from Girard & Cie to Girard Perregaux in celebration of his marriage to Marie Perregaux in 1856, as previously indicated. Constant Girard was a dedicated watchmaker who was enamored with the science of chronometry.

In 1867, the company entered a tourbillon watch in the Universal Exhibition in Paris, and it won. The brand was dissatisfied and decided to do further research and development. It next entered the now-famous Tourbillon with three Gold Bridges into the 1889 Paris Universal Exposition, winning a gold medal this time.

Girard Perregaux's amazing breakthroughs in tourbillons are what made the brand famous today. Constant Girard died in 1903, and the Manufacture was passed down to his son, Constant Girard-Gallet.

He bought the Bautte Company three years later, in 1906, and merged it with Girard-Perregaux. From then on, the company was a leader in the field of haute horology, with hundreds of patents and some of the most difficult timepieces ever created.

Girard-Perregaux explored new worldwide markets and launched a slew of noteworthy collections throughout the twentieth century. Surprisingly, the firm debuted an Art Deco-inspired model in 1945. (brands were already looking to the past for inspiration).

It subsequently debuted the rectangular watch from 1945, which was later revitalized and is still part of the brand's collections today. The firm revealed an ultra-thin high-performance automatic watch a decade later in 1957, which led to the 1966 introduction of the high-frequency Gyromatic, which beat 36,000 vibrations per hour.

In reality, the firm had realized the necessity for an in-house Research & Development team (something few companies did in the 1960s), which helped them to be first in several advances. Girard-Perregaux even had a key role in the development of quartz technology.

It introduced the first quartz watch serially made in Switzerland in 1971. It beat at a frequency of 32,768 Hz, which became the industry standard for quartz timepieces.

The firm has worked out how to miniaturize their iconic Tourbillon with three GoldBridges by the 1990s, releasing a wristwatch size to commemorate its 200th anniversary in 1991.

Luigi "Gino" Macaluso, a former racing car driver and a successful entrepreneur, bought Girard-Perregaux in 1992 and took over the company.

Under his leadership, Girard-Perregaux collaborated with the iconic Ferrari brand to create a split seconds chronograph with the famous prancing horse on the dial, which was one of the first co-branding agreements in the watchmaking industry.

That collaboration lasted ten years and resulted in the release of a slew of intricate and sought-after timepieces. Under Macaluso's leadership, Girard-Perregaux embarked on an unprecedented journey to create its own production skills, unveiling new ultra-thin calibers in 1994.

Gino Macaluso went on to lead Girard-Perregaux to global acclaim over the next almost two decades.

Girard-Perregaux experienced a slew of significant new developments in the twenty-first century. The company debuted its first collection aimed only at women in 2004.

The oval-shaped Cat's Eye was an instant sensation, and it remains a staple in the brand's collections to this day. For the 32nd America's Cup, the brand formed a collaboration and sponsorship with BMW Oracle Racing in the same year.

It was an exciting moment for the company, as it expanded into a variety of nations throughout the globe. It also established its first standalone boutique in Gstaad that year.

Girard-Perregaux debuted the Evo Tourbillon, a continuation line, in 2006, and the ww.tc world timer watch the following year, which offered time throughout the world as well as in financial capitals.

It also debuted the exceedingly complex Jackpot Tourbillon slot machine watch, which received widespread recognition. By 2008, the business had made unprecedented strides in the realm of continuous force, and had even presented its Constant Escapement, which had been wholly conceived and built in-house.

Around 2008, Macaluso, who was President and Chairman of the Sowind Group at the time (which owned Girard-Perregaux and JeanRichard), agreed to sell the company to the French-based Kering Group in exchange for ownership in 2011.

Macaluso, who also served on the executive committees and boards of Kering's Gucci Group and Boucheron, died tragically in 2010.

Girard-Perregaux was taken up by Kering Group in 2011. The Group, which also owns Ulysse Nardin (among other brands), has made an effort to keep the brand innovative and forward-thinking.

It has spent the last eight years cleaning up its collections and expanding its global distribution, as well as introducing new and innovative watches, such as the Neo Bridges Tourbillon.

Collectors love the art-deco, almost steampunk aesthetic of this branch of the original Tourbillon with Three Gold Bridges.

Girard-Perregaux introduced the Le Corbusier Watch Trilogy in 2012 as a homage to the renowned architect. Girard-Perregaux teamed with Aston Martin, a luxury vehicle manufacturer, in 2021.