The Maison
Portrait
Since 1865, Zenith has been guided by authenticity, daring and passion in pushing the boundaries of excellence, precision and innovation. Soon after its founding in Le Locle by visionary watchmaker Georges Favre-Jacot, Zenith gained recognition for the precision of its chronometers, with which it has won 2,333 chronometry prizes in just over a century and a half of existence: an absolute record.
History
Founded in 1865 by the visionary watchmaker Georges Favre-Jacot, the Manufacture houses some 80 watchmaking professions beneath its roof. Whether exponents of the more artistic crafts or of ultra-technical skills, all are engaged in the task undertaken by Georges Favre-Jacot 150 years ago: that of mastering each gesture to enable free-spirited creation of mechanical marvels combining noble watchmaking traditions with avant-garde innovations. Famed for its legendary 1969 El Primero calibre enabling short-time measurements accurate to the nearest 1/10th of a second, Zenith has since developed over 600 movement variations. In this third millennium, based on this same DNA, but with renewed energy, the brand has blazed the trail for fascinating new vistas in time measurement with the launch of the Defy El Primero 21 and the Defy Lab. The former opened the world of hundredth of a second timing, a quantum leap in terms of performance and engineering, impressively combining the historic heritage of Zenith with the future of watchmaking; while the latter, winner of the Innovation Prize at the 2017 Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève, challenged the very foundations of traditional watchmaking with the most accurate mechanical watch ever made. Energised by newly reinforced ties with a proud tradition of dynamic, avant-garde thinking, Zenith is writing its future… and the future of Swiss watchmaking.
