It’s aaaalive! The Time+Tide team picks defunct watch brands to bring back from the dead

Time+Tide

Editor’s note: While we’re currently enjoying a golden age of microbrands where it seems that new watch brands are being born every single week, many of the watch world’s most interesting brands are moribund; just waiting for someone to revive them. Breitling’s high-profile plans to revive Universal Genève as well as other recent revivals such as Vulcain and Nivada Grenchen had us thinking – what other watch brands would we like to see brought back from the dead? Find out below…

Jamie’s pick: Lemania

Lemania is best known as a movement manufacturer – having produced virtually every single chronograph movement that Tissot and Omega used (as well as numerous other brands) from the 1930s until the 1970s – but the now-obscure Swiss brand also made watches of their own. Notably, Lemania supplied multiple arms of the British armed forces including the Royal Air Force, Royal Navy and Fleet Air Arm with chronographs throughout the 1950s and 1960s, such as this HS9 model pictured above, also being one of the Dirty Dozen manufacturers.

I just think there’s something beautifully pure and unadorned about Lemania’s watches, even its dressier pieces. They’re great examples of 20th-century functional design. I think the Lemania Regatta is a particularly handsome watch, in all its forms, and I think modern watch collectors would absolutely froth it (particularly seeing as the Heuer Regatta, which uses the Lemania Calibre 1345 movement, hasn’t been revived by TAG Heuer). It would sell like hotcakes if they also revived it on a lobster bracelet…

Russell’s pick: George Daniels

How predictable. The token Englishman picks the English brand that kickstarted the independent movement. And while I, as somewhat of a purest, am not suggesting here that someone else should be making George Daniels watches, it is one of my few regrets that I never got the chance to meet the man himself and get to know him beyond the many pieces of writing that he produced and had produced about him. I would have loved to have been in the industry when he was at his zenith, producing pieces such as the Space Traveller and his phenomenal Millennium and Anniversary series.

It would be fascinating to see how today’s market would react to someone like Daniels producing watches at the level that he was, as I would see him being the leading light when it comes to the current iridescent independent space. I’m certain the current watchmakers working today would love to still have Daniels there as a mentor, and a rich source of knowledge. While he famously took Roger Smith under his wing, he was also a massive influence on François-Paul Journe, and if the young watchmakers who are coming up now had a similar level of exposure to him, you can only imagine the impact that would have had.

But more than anything else, I would love to see what else Daniels was able to create. His co-axial escapement is incredible and the way he was able to bring ancient techniques and complications back and perfectly recreate them still amazes me today. His love for horological history surely would have led him to uncover and revive more antiquated ways of telling the time in beautiful, yet perplexing ways. Reviving a brand might be a little easier than reviving a man, which is why I love that his legacy is not only living on in the watchmakers he worked with, but in the George Daniels Educational Trust which helps support students who show promise at the various centres of study in the UK. And short of new George Daniels watches being produced, freshly minted watchmakers are good enough for me.

Borna’s pick: Derek Pratt

Speaking of modern watchmakers who are no longer with us, and whose names are still held to high regard – my choice is Derek Pratt. Though certainly not as well-known as Daniels or Dufour, there seems to be little reason for that to be true. Pratt’s work largely focused on making watches with methods as traditional as possible, and is notable for his excellent guilloché work, and the realisation of a Breguet-inspired constant-force escapement tourbillon. The Reuleaux escapement sat inside the tourbillon cage itself, utilising a curved equilateral triangle-shaped jewel in the centre of the escape wheel, attached to it via remontoire spring and releasing on every fifth beat. Originally found in Urban Jürgensen’s pocket watches, the system evolved in 1997 with the construction of the Double-Wheel Remontoir Tourbillon. Equipped with two escape wheels, they rotate in opposing directions thanks to forward and inwards-facing teeth of the tourbillon carriage’s fourth wheel that would normally engage with the escape wheels. That’s a lot of technical talk to describe a revolutionary escapement, but it does show the lengths Pratt went to, achieving something only him and Daniels could. Not only that, Pratt manufactured many of the components of Daniels’ watches, though without formal recognition by the latter.

While Pratt worked on developing new ways of improving chronometric performance, he’s also notable for his restoration work, the extent of which went to replicating John Harrison’s H4, the precursor of all modern marine chronometers. With no help from the Greenwich National Maritime Museum, Pratt began the project in 1997, but due to failing health, realised he would not see the watch finished. Instead, he handed the project over to the watchmakers at Charles Frodsham & Co. before he passed away in 2009 from prostate cancer. Frodsham completed the project in 2014, and in a way, I felt that Pratt deserves to see his magnum opus alive and ticking. Coincidentally, Pratt also worked with Frodsham on developing an in-house variant of the double-impulse escapement, which came to fruition in 2017 with the release of the brand’s Double Impulse Chronometer.

In his final years, Pratt also looked to implement his Reuleaux constant-force escapement into a wristwatch, but only having the chance to see a straight-line prototype completed before his passing. The baton was passed down to Ron DeCorte and Stuart Lesemann, who in turn recruited Luca Soprana to make the project come to life. The DPW 01 was introduced in 2020, and the latest development in this particular saga is this stunning example made for Perpétuel Gallery. Since Pratt, the man, is unlikely to be coming back any time soon, I’ll settle with more widely adopted appreciation of his work.

Buffy’s pick: Landeron

There’s an argument to be made for natural selection when it comes to extinct watch brands, because clearly there are some companies who were able to successfully navigate all of Swiss watchmaking’s tumultuous history. However, one manufacturer quite close to my heart was closed by no fault of its own, and was essentially forced out of existence by a series of executive orders with poor foresight. Landeron was the brand that essentially made chronographs attainable for the average customer, by inventing cam actuation to replace the column wheel. Although it was less complex and cheaper to produce, there was no measurable drop in quality, even if you did prefer the pusher-feel of a column wheel. The Landeron 47, which was the first model released in 1937, was quickly upgraded into the Landeron 48 that same year, and it found its way into countless classic watches over the next few decades. Some fantastic examples of Landeron-powered brands include Heuer, Breitling, Baume & Mercier, Bovet, Cyma, Zodiac, Bucherer, and funnily enough, even some Lemania watches.

Landeron became a victim of its own innovative spirit. Back in the ’20s, it was one of the original members of Ebauches SA, which was a Swiss state-supported group aimed at controlling the quality and output of movement manufacture and supply. It did however, give ultimate power of the company to this overseeing body. The Swiss watch industry was actually in shambles by the start of the ’30s, and ASUAG was formed as an even bigger group of manufacturers. It was helpful at the time, but lack of independence can be both a blessing and a curse. After the Americans invented electric watch movements in the ’50s, Landeron was the first Swiss watchmaker to produce an electric movement in 1961. But, it was a little bit too late, and it wasn’t enough of a novelty to overcome the inherent reliability issues which came with that technology. Ebauches SA, still in charge of Landeron, committed to a five-year project which would result in the perfect electric watch movement. The Dynotron calibre 9150 was successfully released in 1967, just two years before Seiko unleashed quartz movements upon the world. There was nowhere left for Landeron to pivot, and it suffered a slow demise until finally closing in 1983.

Zach’s pick: Pierre Cardin

 

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In a twist of fate, perhaps, I have the asterisk pick of the list, as technically speaking, there are watches sold under the name Pierre Cardin today. But these pieces are an absolute embarrassment, and the former celebrated brand of watches is effectively dead. The current designs should be taken behind the barn and shot. Aggressive, I know, but ultimately the back catalogue of Pierre Cardin designs is ripe for a revival in an environment where consumers are finally looking beyond steel sports and are embracing more creative and artistic watch shapes and aesthetics.

The willingness consumers once again seem to have, to explore new forms and shapes, is why, to an extent, brands like Cartier are rocketing in popularity. And Audemars Piguet and Toledano & Chan both made headlines within the last month thanks to their brutalist-inspired designs. Pierre Cardin, a legendary fashion designer known for his experimentation with space-age designs, brought such flavour to watch design in the 70s – in particular the Espace collection – that had the deep-cut allure of being co-signed with ‘Jaeger’ presumably due to collaboration with Jaeger-LeCoultre in their manufacture. To see its current state now with such a wonderful wake is devastating.

The Pierre Cardin Watches website writes on its “about us” page: “Our watches celebrate the authentic and effortless Parisian lifestyle. They are bold yet elegant and sleek. A distinctive celebration of la joie de vivre – the joy of life. Pierre Cardin’s iconic signature designs combined with current trends, continuously inspire our collections. The result is must-have timepieces, destined to become timeless.” Must-have? More like a must-burn. Yikes. We have gone from space-age aesthetics with Jaeger manufacturing to AliExpress drop-ship special? Complete waste of potential in my eyes.

Fortunately, the funky and venerable vintage pieces are rather accessible in price presently and still continue to garner attention from adventurous watch wearers. There is certainly room for a quality-driven modern revival. In today’s market, for these designs to be brought back with entry-level movements from Sellita would make them the most approachable in price while melding well with the size and shapes of the space-age-styled cases and proportions.