Manufacture d'horlogerie: Girard Perregaux

Manufacture d'horlogerie. Manufacture d'horlogerie is a term reserved for  watch manufacturers that make all or most of the parts required for their movements in their own production facilities as opposed to assembling watches using parts purchased from other firms. For reasons of their in-house expertize companies classified as manufacture d'horlogerie are generally considered to be the elite of the watch making industry.

What is so important about in-house manufacture.  A few weeks ago, we started this series of articles featuring watch manufacturers who build some or all of their watches in-house. A friend of mine was asking me, what is the big deal with in-house manufacture. Watchmakers resort to in-house manufacture for several reasons. One is to be able to control quality, to build things which are not available from mass manufacturers of movements, to develop new technologies or simply to increase the value of their watches. Today, we are focusing on Girard Perregaux and which we think is a good example of why in-house manufacture is important.

Girard Perragaux. In 1852, watchmaker Constant Girard founded a company amed Girard & Cie Firm in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland. A few years later, Constant Girard married Marie Perregaux and a new company called Girard-Perregaux Manufacture was formed in 1856. In 1906, Constant Girard-Gallet, who took over control of the Girard-Perregaux Manufacture from his father, took over the Bautte House and merged it with Girard-Perregaux. Bautte House watch manufacturing history traces it roots back to 1791 and master watchmaker and jeweller Jean-François Bautte.

Girard-Perregaux continues that tradition of building movements, cases and most other components of their watches all under their own roof. From a cost efficiency standpoint, sub-contracting out work would result in lower manufacturing cost. But if value for money were the issue than one would never buy a Girard-Perregaux, or any other mechanical watch for the matter. A Girard-Perregaux is a luxury item. A functional piece of jewelry whose value is not measure in carats, but in craftsmanship.  The name on the dial, is a guaranty of the entire product. It is the old way of doing things, and that is what you pay for.

But a company building in-house, also contributes in terms of development of the entire industry. You get a watch built not only by businessmen, but by craftsmen. Craftsmen always looking to further the art.   

In this respect, Girard-Perregaux has about 80 patents.  In 1880, Constant Girard developed the concept of wristwatches, made for German naval officers and ordered by Emperor Guillaume I of Germany. Two-thousand watches were produced, which represents the first large order  of wrist watches commercialization of wristwatches. Prior to this, Patek Philippe did build a wristwatch. A one-off special order. This does not detract from the vision of Constant Girard, who together with Patek Philippe and Cartier Santos Dumont can share the credit for being the fathers of the wristwatch.

Modern mechanical watches beat at the rate of 28,800 beats per hour. Meaning the second hand ticks 8 times per second, giving the illusion of a smooth movement. In 1965, Girard-Perregaux built a movement which beats at 36,000 beats per hour, which was than twice as fast as the typical mechanical movement. While the industry has standardized with movements that produced 21,600 to 28,800 beats per hour, given considerations of wear and tear and power reserve, some chronograph watches like the TAG Heuer Concept Chronograph use a fast beat 36,000 movement to allow the watch to measure period of elapsed time to an accuracy of 1/10th of a second. This seemingly cutting edge technology is 45 years old, courtesy of Girard-Perregaux. 

More ground breaking was the development by Girard-Perregaux of a quartz movement which vibrates at 32,768 hertz, the frequency remaining the universal standard for quartz watches today. More recently in 2008, Girard-Perregaux created a constant force escapement. A constant force escapement is an escapement designed to give exact measured impulses  to a balance and hairspring or a pendulum, and thus avoid changes in rate caused by variations in the driving force. Only time will tell, but this new design could radically improve the accuracy of mechanical watches. 

If Girard-Perregaux had simply relied on buying technology developed by others, and place these in watches sold under their brand name, would these ground braking innovations come to light? The answer is yes,  inevitably yes, someone else would do it. Some other company deserving of the esteemed title of manufacture d'horlogerie. But for many innovations, it was Girard-Perregaux, who not only builds watches, but is part of perfecting the art.