Audemars Piguet is a major Swiss watch manufacturer. Their watches include classic watches and the Royal Oak casual watches. They have received great attention for their Terminator 3 watch.
Foundation
The roots of the famous Swiss watch manufacturer date back to the 19th century, when, in 1875, the young 23 year old Jules Audemars met another young man by the name of Edward-August Piguet who was at that time only 21 years old. The historical meeting place of the two was 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 Jules Audemars started producing component parts for movements and Edward-August got the job of a repasseur, which means he was a master watchmaker, whose job it was to make the final regulation of the timepiece. They founded a firm, the name of which was later known as Audemars, Piguet et Cie.
In this great Swiss Manufacture of watches, the torch of the founders of the company continues to be carried by their successors in hot line. Since 1882, the members of the Audemars families and Piguet sat always at the Board of directors and, thus, directly or indirectly contributed to the destiny of the company. The high engagement ordered by the respect of the family tradition, the direct bond between the watch and the surname, imply a particularly important responsibility as for quality and, so with the prestige of the manufactured goods of this famous Vallée of Joux.
Since many centuries, it is in the Vallée de Joux that Audemars and Piguet are established. Their major rooting in the history of this extraordinary region, in the life with the Valley of Joux and especially in the clock industry, confers, today like yesterday, its print of excellence to the company Audemars Piguet. The immense clock making tradition of the Valley of Joux continues to live, without division, these watches which have the privilege to raise this nomprestigieux. Audemars as well as Piguet continue to be proud for it: a struck watch their names concretizes not only the lesson of the highest school of the fine clock industry of precision, but still nowadays conceals a good part of the eminent clock making know-how of Jules Audemars and Edward Piguet.
Business
Their business started with Audemars managing the production and monitoring the technical part and Piguet focused his attention towards sales. Instant success was not to come. The Audemars Piguet trademark was registered later in 1882 and only seven years later the company was officially founded. Then Audemars Piguet et Cie achieved success in becoming one of the first largest employers for watch-making in the whole Canton of Vaud, which is one of the cantons located in the southwestern part of Switzerland.
The two talented watchmakers focused their attention mainly towards the production of qualitative, precision timekeeping watches with sophisticated mechanisms. After the company was officially founded it opened its new branch in the heart of Switzerland – Geneva. Thus, since 1889 the company started creating its own in-house component parts and assembling within its factory as well. The process of controlling the quality of timepieces maintained at a high level, and only the best products were launched into the market.
In the period between 1894 and 1899 the company produced about 1,200 timepieces. These included some very complex watches. When Audemars passed away in 1918 as well as his partner in 1919, the company continued its activity steadily growing and expanding its fame.
Later Audemars Piguet launched several watches like the smallest minute repeater in the world and a jumping [-second hand pocket watch. In 1925 Audemars Piguet amazed the world of haute horlogerie with its thinnest pocket watch. Only three years later the company created the first skeleton watch in the world.
As the success of the company's business was rising its customers became Tiffany & Co, Cartier and Bulgari. At the end of 1920's and the beginning of 1930's the success of Audemars Piguet started dimming. The crash of the stock market as well as the Depression slowed down the development of many Swiss companies.
During the World War II the famous Swiss watch manufacturer was able to come back on the market by producing one of its well-known models – an ultra-thin chronograph, the heart of which was Calibre 2003. The sales of Audemars Piguet started growing in the 5th and 6th decades of the 20th century. Together with Jaeger LeCoultre it was able to design the thinnest automatic movement. The latter included a 21 carat gold rotor placed in the center. The legendary "Royal Oak" was produced five years later, in 1972. The designer of the watch was the Gerald Genta - also a well-known person in the watch industry.
Today the company maintains one of the leading positions in the watch-making branch. It owns about 40 per cent of Jaeger LeCoultre and every timepiece manufactured in-house is still made using the old-fashioned hand-made technique.
The Audemars Piguet's manufactory achieved so much success that now it is part of the so-called "big trio" of watch manufacture along with Patek Philippe and Vacheron Constantin.
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