Industry Watch manufacturing Founded 1988 Type Subsidiary | Products Wrist watches CEO Peter Stas (Jul 1997–) | |
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Key people Peter Stas, Managing Director Website www.frederique-constant.com Headquarters Plan-les-Ouates, Switzerland Profiles | ||
Frédérique Constant SA is a manufacture of luxury wrist watches based in Plan-les-Ouates, Geneva. It was acquired in 2017 by Citizen Holdings of Tokyo, Japan. The company was established in 1988 by Dutch entrepreneur Peter Stas and his wife, Aletta Bax. Since 2002, the company has also owned Alpina Watches, a manufacturer of Swiss sports watches founded in 1883.
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History
The company was founded in 1988 by Aletta Francoise Frédérique Stas-Bax and Peter Constant Stas. Its name is derived from the names of great-grandparents of each founder – specifically Frédérique Schreiner (1881–1969) and Constant Stas (1880–1967), the latter of which founded a company producing watch dials in 1904.
In 2002, to diversify the Frédérique Constant group, Stas and his wife acquired Alpina Watches, a manufacturer of Swiss sports watches founded in 1883.
Frederique Constant has grown into one of the larger Swiss watch manufacturers. In 2011, production reached over 120,000 watches, sold in over 2,700 points of sale in more than 100 countries. Frederique Constant positions itself in the accessible luxury segment, with most of its watches selling in the price range of CHF 1,000–5,000 retail. In 2011, the company said that it expected to continue growing at an annual rate of 25%, doubling in size every three years.
In May 2016, Citizen announced its intention to acquire Frederique Constant Holding SA, which includes Frederique Constant, Alpina Watches, and Ateliers deMonaco.
Manufacture facilities
Frederique Constant operates a manufacture in Plan-les-Ouates measuring 3200 square metres, divided over four floors, with sectors for movement component production, movement assembly, watch assembly, and quality control. Numerically controlled machinery is located in a large workshop in the basement, where all component manufacturing is concentrated. Movement and watch assembly, as well as quality control, is primarily organized on the first floor.
Heart Beat movement
In 2001, Frederique Constant began the development of its first watch movement in co-operation with the École d'Horlogerie de Genève, École d'Ingenieurs de Genève and the Horloge Vakschool Zadkine. The Heart Beat Manufacture has a characteristic bridge for the balance wheel on the front side of the movement. Having the bridge for the balance wheel on the front side made it possible to have the spiral and fine regulation on the front side as well, creating the company's "Heart Beat" design. The company patented this construction as an innovation in watch design technology.
The company's "Heart Beat Manufacture" won the "Watch of the Year" Award of Horloges Magazine in the category up to €3000 in 2005.
As of 2014, the company has brought 15 distinct movements to the market, starting with the introduction of its original Heart Beat in 2004.
Silicon escapement wheel
In February 2007, Frederique Constant began production of the Silicon escapement wheel (first introduced to the industry by Patek Philippe in 2005). The company introduced the Heart Beat Calibre FC 935 Silicium in October 2007. It implements new high tech materials to create better, more precise and more reliable mechanical watches. Deep reactive-ion etching is used to shape silicon wafers into escapement wheels, pallets, and plateaus. Silicon is lighter, harder and stronger than metal. Etched into tiny skeletal structures that would be impossible to form with metal, it becomes the featherweight heart of a mechanism that can run at a far higher accuracy. The silicon parts are virtually frictionless, so need no lubrication, and are immune to most external forces. And when bonded with a carbon coating, silicon's only real drawback, brittleness, can also be overcome.
Tourbillon
In April 2008, Frederique Constant created a tourbillon with a silicon escape-wheel and, for the first time, an amplitude of over 300 degrees between its vertical and horizontal positions. Coupled with rapid oscillation, this gives the watch an unusually high level of precision.
Manufacture
Frederique Constant offers 15 manufacture (in-house) movements in addition to their mainstream line of ETA-powered watches. The high-end FC-9xx caliber, introduced in 2001, was joined by Tourbillon in 2008 and a mainstream FC-7xx caliber range in 2009. The addition of the second-generation manufacture movements makes the company unusual in offering a complete in-house watch for under €2,000 MSRP. Watches with in-house movements are identified with the word, "Manufacture" in their model name, or can be identified by looking for the tourbillon, FC-9xx, or FC-7xx movement in their specifications.
Worldtimer
Frederique Constant introduced a Worldtimer watch in 2012 with a unique mechanism, adjusted solely via the crown. The Worldtimer function is used by selecting the desired city and placing it at the 12 o'clock position on the dial. Internal discs automatically synchronise, and after that, it is possible to see what time it is in any of the 24 cities on the dial. In addition, thin discs also indicate at a glance whether it is day (white disc) or night (black disc).
Runabout product line
The Runabout range is a main collection of Frederique Constant and is designed to pay tribute to the runabout gentlemen's sports boats of the Roaring Twenties. The company has sponsored the Hélice Classique Genève and Lake Tahoe Concours d'Elegance boating events, which have showcased vintage wood boats.
Vintage rally line and sponsorships
Since 2004, Frederique Constant has sponsored several classic car rallies worldwide, and it develops limited-edition watches for each of these sponsorships. The sponsorships have included Healey Challenges, Peking to Paris, and the Carrera Panamericana.
Horological Smartwatch
In 2015, the Frederique Constant and Alpina brands introduced the "Horological Smartwatch", a smartwatch product with motion and sleep tracking functions that uses a secondary analog dial rather than a screen for its display – giving the timepiece a more classic look than other such devices. The lack of a display screen also provides a significant power savings – enabling a battery life of two years or more, in contrast with other smartwatches that must be charged daily. This product line uses "MotionX" core technology licensed from the California-based company Fullpower Technologies and was developed in a joint venture known as Manufacture Modules Technologies (MMT).
Brand ambassadors
The company's brand ambassadors have included the following:
Charitable activities
The company's charitable activities have included: