Georges Favre-Jacot

 

At a time when the production of watches comprised of artisans and watchmakers working separately
in a decentralized manner, one man saw the future of watchmaking as one of vertical integration. A visionary who was ahead of his time, Georges Favre-Jacot understood that
in order to be at the pinnacle of precision and innovation, he had to combine under one roof all the knowledge, skills and artisanal crafts required to build a watch from start to finish. And so in 1865, at the age of 22, he did just that by creating the ZENITH workshop, where teamwork reigned and was to essentially become the first integrated watch manufacture in the modern sense of the
term. Over a century and half later, the collaborative spirit of ZENITH is stronger than ever, with the manufacture having evolved into a multi-disciplinary and innovative platform that is cultivating the watchmaking of tomorrow.

This mastery of all stages of production under a single roof represented a giant leap forward in creating high-quality watches able to meet the strong demand from customers around the world looking for watches capable of displaying the correct time. The approach was all the more successful in that Georges Favre-Jacot continued developing new machines and production technologies intended to constantly improve the quality and precision of his timepieces. To back up the handcrafted care devoted to the design and finishing of each timepiece, the founder-watchmaker once again demonstrated his impressive entrepreneurial spirit by elaborating the principles of interchangeable components and automated production.

The Manufacture established by Georges Favre-Jacot definitively adopts the name of ZENITH, referring to the highest point reached by a heavenly body in the sky and thereby symbolizing the heights of excellence to which the brand with the guiding star has been aspiring ever since.

To achieve this unprecedented vision of watchmaking, Georges Favre-Jacot worked closely with a star architect of the era: Alphonse Laverrière. Their cooperation was closely linked to the international “Werkbund” movement that aimed to infuse industrial products with an aesthetic and even artistic dimension.

 

The watchmaker and the architect nurtured a shared vision based on the belief that all visual aspects of a company and its production must be in complete harmony with the product itself. The two men soon established themselves as the spearheads of this reform of the visual arts in French-speaking Switzerland. Under the impetus of Alphonse Laverrière, ZENITH developed, conceived and produced all decorative elements of its shops, thereby inventing what has now became known as the flagship store concept. While hundreds of projects for clocks, table clocks and wristwatches were emerging, layouts for presenting the collections were developed, packaging paper was designed, along with presentation boxes and display stands representing the watch industry’s first point-of-sales advertising.

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