The History Of Audemars Piguet -

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The roots of Audemars Piguet date back to 1875, when the 23-year-old Jules-Louis Audemars met Edward-Auguste Piguet, then only 21, at Vallee de Joux, which is considered to be the cradle of prestige watch-making. Their hometown was Le Brassus. When they graduated school they went to Vallee de Joux to start working in their favorite field of watch manufacturing. Thus Audemars started producing component parts for movements and Piguet got the job of a repasseur, whose job it was to make the final regulation of the timepiece. They founded a firm later known as Audemars, Piguet et Cie. Soon after their meeting in 1875, members of the Audemars and Piguet families have always been on the board of directors and thus directly or indirectly ran the company.
Almost from the beginning,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], Audemars was in charge of production and the technical side,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], while his partner Piguet focused on sales. Their partnership was not an immediate success, however. In fact, the Audemars Piguet trademark was not even registered until 1882 and the firm's "official founding" did not take place until 1889. Already, however, Audemars Piguet et Cie had become the third largest employer for watch manufacturing in the Canton of Vaud. Both men had deliberately shifted their focus towards the production of high-quality, complex, ultra-precise watches.
After the official founding in 1889, a branch office was built in Geneva and the partners decided to produce all of their components and assemble the finished watches in-house. This allowed the firm to maintain strict quality control over their products and as a result, only products of the highest quality left the workshop. In short order, the greatest, most renowned retail jewelers were ordering watches from Le Brassus.
It is interesting that between 1894 and 1899, a mere 1,208 watches were produced. Among these were some of the most sophisticated timepieces ever made, including the legendary "Grande Complication" series, which is still being produced today. Aside from normal time indication, a Grande Complication timepiece offers minute repetition, perpetual calendar, and chronograph.
At around this same time, the retail operations in Geneva and London were transformed into full-service branches where watches were not only serviced but also assembled. Audemars Piguet launched a project to develop a watch so complicated that it would take six years,till 1920, of continuous production before the watch could be delivered to the importers Guignard & Golay in London.
The watch in question was a pocket watch with two dials and a one-minute tourbillon mechanism. As well as a tourbillon,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], this double dial Lepine, gold watch included a minute repeater, a chronograph with 60-minute and 12-hour counters, perpetual calendar with displays which "jump" at midnight, display of the leap year cycle, the "age" and phases of the moon, and power reserve display. The second face showed an additional 24 hours based on the sidereal hour, moving a pair of independent hands. A special system connected to this gear-train makes it possible to see the changes in the London sky at any time of the day or night, through an oval-shaped opening in the rear dial.
This sky is represented by 315 stars engraved on a plate of gold, enameled in blue. The stars, with their respective names, are all clearly visible.
Unfortunately, it was the last triumph for the founding partners. Audemars died in 1918. The following year, so did Edward Piguet. After the founders' death, Audemars Piguet continued to prosper, establishing several technical milestones with the creation of the world's smallest minute repeater watch, having a diameter of just 15.8 millimeters; Hunter Model debut with a jumping second hand, also featuring a barometer, quarter repeater, independent second hand,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], the date and day of the week; and in 1925, another first: the world's thinnest pocket watch measuring just 1.32 millimeters.
The year 1928 also saw the development of the world's first skeletonized pocketwatch. As now, Audemars Piguet was considered one of the finest watch manufacturers in the world. Business boomed, as did the world economy.
Audemars Piguet is a manufacturer of expensive Swiss watches that compete with Patek Phillipe and Vacheron Constantin. As one of the most prestigious luxury brands in the world, Audemars Piguet remains the oldest Manufacture of Haute Horlogerie never to have left the hands of its founding families even though the enormous success made by the company. Today, frequently referred to as one of the "Big Three," the manufactory not only has a glorious past, but a healthy present and a promising future.

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