ZENITH

Georges Favre-Jacot began his career as a watchmaker at a young age, and when he was just 22 years old, he founded Zenith under the name "Georges Favre-Jacot & Cie."

Watches were often constructed at the time by mixing pieces made in tiny workshops or by independent artisans from diverse, sometimes remote, regions around a region, a technique that was sometimes inefficient and limited the accuracy with which timekeeping could be maintained.

Favre-Jacot was instrumental in ushering watchmaking into the modern age by manufacturing all essential watch components in the same facility and producing standardized parts that could be used interchangeably to build a variety of different movements—in essence, creating one of the first industrial watchmaking operations.

Zenith began by concentrating primarily on the production of high-precision pocket watches. However, by the early 1900s, the firm had expanded into a variety of related items, such as table and pendulum clocks. It would later branch out into marine and aviation chronometers, as well as wristwatches.

In 1911, Favre-Jacot was looking for a name for a new movement and was inspired by the magnificent variety of stars of the night sky, which reminded him of the numerous interlocking pieces in a watch movement.

He decided to name his latest movement Zenith, after the highest point achieved in the celestial sphere, because it was a clear advance above all of his prior ideas. Later, the corporation added a five-pointed star to its corporate emblem, alluding to its founder's celestial inspiration.

1903. Zenith takes first prize in the famous Neuchâtel observatory's accuracy competition. From that year on, the firm competed in Neuchâtel and other accuracy contests on a regular basis, frequently winning first place.

1911: Georges Favre-Jacot retires and hands over the firm to his nephew and son-in-law, James Favre, who had already begun assisting in the worldwide expansion of Zenith before taking over, traversing the world to sell watches to consumers in Russia, the Americas, India, China, and Japan. Zenith quickly expanded its operations to include offices in Moscow, Paris, Vienna, London, and New York.

1915. With chronographs, alarms, and the introduction of the seconds complication, which is now a common feature in all timepieces, Zenith begins creating what is now its most well-known offering—wristwatches—and has a huge impact on the industry.

1969. Zenith joins forces with Mondia and Movado to introduce El Primero, the world's first automated chronograph movement, which had been in development since 1967. Because of its 5 Hz working frequency, which produces a high-beat time resolution of 1/10 second and allows for more positional precision than the normal 4 Hz frequency, El Primero is still frequently used and regarded in high regard today. Zenith also began selling watches from a line called simply "El Primero" in this year, which is still one of Zenith's most popular collections (all of which have their eponymous movement).

1971. Zenith is taken over by the Zenith Radio Corporation, a Chicago-based corporation that was the top radio and electronics component maker in the United States at the time. Zenith Radio Corporation intended to utilize Zenith entirely to sell quartz movements in the future, as mechanical movements were rapidly losing favor among Americans at the time.

1978. Zenith was already told to stop all mechanical movement manufacturing and destroy all materials and apparatus related to the development of mechanical movements. Fortunately, Charles Vermot, the chief of Zenith's chronograph department, who had spent his entire career with the company, defied the order and had been surreptitiously storing all of the design drawings, as well as as many equipment and machinery as he could, in the company's attic. The El Primero movement would have been lost to future generations if Vermot had not done so. Dixi, a Swiss business, purchased Zenith towards the end of the year and collaborated with watchmaker Ebel to bring El Primero back into production.

Zenith resumes watch production in 1984.

1999: Zenith shifts its attention to luxury watches, joining several other leading watch companies within the LMVH (Mot Hennessy Louis Vuitton SE) international luxury goods conglomerate.

The year 2015 marks the 150th anniversary of Zenith's foundation.

Zenith has passed through various leadership and directional movement, but has always miraculously survived and even thrive because to a dedication to quality. Today, the firm is led by CEO Julian Tornare, who collaborates closely with Jean-Claude Biver (chairman of Zenith's Board of Directors and president of LMVH's Watches Division) to keep the company on track for sustained growth and innovation.

(First picture is founder Georges Favre-Jacot)