Girard-Perregaux

With origins dating back to 1791 in Geneva through the work of watchmaker Jean-François Bautte, the brand adopted its official name in 1856 following the marriage of Constant Girard and Marie Perregaux in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland. It is one of the oldest continuously operating fine watchmaking manufactories in the world.

Girard-Perregaux’s defining technical signature is the Three Gold Bridges Tourbillon, unveiled in 1889 at the Paris Universal Exposition, where it won the gold medal. For the first time in watchmaking history, the movement’s bridges ceased to be merely hidden structural components and became the visible face of the watch’s architectural design.

As a key historical reference point, Girard-Perregaux was the pioneering brand behind the mass production of military wristwatches for the Imperial German Navy in 1880. Additionally, in the 1970s, it established the oscillation frequency of quartz movements at 32.768 Hz, a technical standard later adopted by the entire global watchmaking industry.