18 Favre Leuba Watches

Favre Leuba Watches - The Time Gone By

Being the second oldest Swiss watchmaking company in the world, the 284 years history of Favre Leuba starts in the small Swiss town of Le Locle in the year 1737. Second only to another iconic Swiss brand Blancpain by a narrow margin of two years, the company was founded by the master watchmaker in the town, Abraham Favre. An archived official document states that Abraham Favre started this company on 13th March 1737.

However, the son of Abraham Favre, also named Abraham Favre, took his father’s watchmaking workshop to new heights. Along with his sons, Frédéric and Henry-Louis Favre, Abraham Favre made sure that the business was booming with the formation of A. Favre & Fils. Yet, the name Favre Leuba was not born until the next century, when the fourth generation Favre and son of Frédéric, Henry-Auguste Favre, collaborated with watchmaker and merchant Auguste Leuba, who himself came from a family strongly involved with the watchmaking industry.

The Favre and Leuba duo travelled around the world, promoting their brand and participating in prestigious watchmaking competitions held in cities such as Porto, London, Bern, New York and London.  The fifth generation of the Favre family, Fritz Favre, proved to be equally important to the business. He and his children worked hard to make Favre Leuba a brand with a significant market share in countries like India. Under the helm of the sixth generation, the company shifted its ever-growing operations from the small town of Le Locle to the much more commercially suitable Geneva.

The Century That Had It All - A Historical Look Into Favre Leuba Watches

In the 20th century, this grand-old company had its fair share of ups and downs. Up to the 1980s, the company was in the hands of the seventh and eighth generations of the family, including the influential Henry Favre Leuba. The first few decades of the 20th century saw Henry Favre Leuba push boundaries in regard to new markets as well innovations in watchmaking.

The year 1925 was when the company released the first monopusher chronograph, while by 1940, Favre Leuba had released the Reverso movement. Despite the Second World War causing problems in sales, Favre-Leuba bounced back strongly after the war owing to their substantial numbers in the Indian markets.

This strong comeback led to the production of movements and calibres such as the FL101, FL102 and the automatic FL103 and FL104 in the 1950s. The new decade of the 1960s began with a bang as the company showcased its first diver’s watch, the Water Deep. However, in 1962, the company’s trajectory changed forever as the legendary Bivouac watch was released. The Bivouac was a technologically superior watch with multiple utilities and was the first mechanical watch equipped with an aneroid barometer. For mountaineers, explorers and climbers, this became an indispensable tool.

The 1960s also witnessed the release of other iconic watches, including the diving watches  Deep Blue and Bathy, which showed not only diving depth but also diving time.

Unfortunately, the Favre Leuba was a victim of the Quartz Crisis of the 1970s, and the Favre Leuba family finally sold off the company in the mid-1980s. However, after almost two and a half decades of stagnation, this iconic brand was given a new lease of life in 2011 as a result of the Indian Tata Group of Companies buying the company.

Favre Leuba Watches - Three Centuries Young

Now headquartered in the region of Zug in Switzerland, Favre Leuba has rejuvenated its collections by launching the Chiefs and the Raider collections. The Bivouac, Bathy, Deep Blue, Sea Sky: these iconic collections were relaunched with new advanced specifications as part of the Raider collection. In addition, to mark the 280th anniversary, the company released the critically acclaimed Raider Bivouac 9000 in 2018. The following year, this model became the only mechanical altimeter watch in the world to work at the summit of Mt. Everest successfully.

With such technologically advanced innovations, the Tata Group has promised to continue the much-heralded revival of this legendary brand by making watches relevant in today’s contemporary society while tracing its roots to the rich heritage.