Bovet 1822 celebrates its 195th anniversary

The watchmaking company celebrated its 195th anniversary last May.

However, its story began when Jean-Frédéric Bovet decided to send his watchmaker sons Frédéric, Alphonse and Edouard to London - the main commercial hub for watchmaking at the time - to learn how to trade. In 1818, Edouard Bovet left London for Canton to become a pioneer in selling pocket watches. The watches produced by the Bovet brothers immediately appealed to the Emperor of China, his Court and the Chinese nobility, who quickly became the most fervent collectors of these creations.

The Bovet brothers went on to write some of the greatest chapters in fine watchmaking history by elevating the decorative arts to a standard that is rarely unrivalled to this day. For a full century, the entire valley surrounding the village of Fleurier reaped the rewards of the Chinese penchant for watches. Thanks to the daring and success of the Bovet brothers, a true regional industry was born.

Over the course of the 20th century, the house distinguished itself with numerous innovations and patents. A Bovet pocket watch dating from around 1920 holds the absolute record for autonomy with its 360-day power reserve. Other notable achievements include the patent for the 1930 easel watch that paved the way for the Amadeo system, and the iconic Mono-Rattrapante Chronograph whose simplified and more reliable mechanism still features on the syllabus of all Swiss watchmaking schools.

To celebrate this anniversary, Pascal Raffy, the owner of Bovet 1822, decided to focus the 2017 collections on the theme of space, which is utterly inseparable from the concept of time.

June 01, 2017