Tissot SA () is a
Swiss
Swiss may refer to:
* the adjectival form of Switzerland
*Swiss people
Places
* Swiss, Missouri
*Swiss, North Carolina
* Swiss, West Virginia
*Swiss, Wisconsin
Other uses
* Swiss-system tournament, in various games and sports
* Swiss Internation ...
watchmaker
A watchmaker is an artisan who makes and repairs watches. Since a majority of watches are now factory-made, most modern watchmakers only repair watches. However, originally they were master craftsmen who built watches, including all their part ...
. The company was founded in
Le Locle
Le Locle (; german: Luggli) is a municipality in the Canton of Neuchâtel in Switzerland.
It is situated in the Jura Mountains, a few kilometers from the city of La Chaux-de-Fonds.
It is the third smallest city in Switzerland (in Switzerland ...
, Switzerland by Charles-Félicien Tissot and his son, Charles-Émile Tissot, in 1853.
After several mergers and name changes, the group which Tissot SA belonged to was renamed
the Swatch Group
The Swatch Group Ltd is a Swiss manufacturer of watches and jewellery. The company was founded in 1983 by the merger of ASUAG and SSIH to move to manufacturing quartz-crystal watches to resolve the quartz crisis threatening the traditional Swi ...
in 1998.
[
Tissot is not associated with Mathey-Tissot, another Swiss watchmaking firm.
]
History
Independent company
Tissot was founded in 1853 by Charles-Félicien Tissot and his son Charles-Émile Tissot in the Swiss city of Le Locle, in the Neuchâtel
, neighboring_municipalities= Auvernier, Boudry, Chabrey (VD), Colombier, Cressier, Cudrefin (VD), Delley-Portalban (FR), Enges, Fenin-Vilars-Saules, Hauterive, Saint-Blaise, Savagnier
, twintowns = Aarau (Switzerland), Besançon (Fra ...
canton of the Jura Mountains
The Jura Mountains ( , , , ; french: Massif du Jura; german: Juragebirge; it, Massiccio del Giura, rm, Montagnas da Jura) are a sub-alpine mountain range a short distance north of the Western Alps and mainly demarcate a long part of the Fre ...
area. The father and son team worked as a casemaker (Charles-Félicien Tissot) and watchmaker (Charles-Emile). His son having expressed an interest in watchmaking from a young age. The two turned their house at the time into a small 'factory'. Charles-Emile Tissot left for Russia in 1858 and succeeded in selling their savonnette pocket watches across the Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War ...
.
In 2021, the company is marketin
Le Locle Powermatic 80
which has a watch face designed to mimic the clock tower in its founding city of Le Locle.
Omega, SSIH, ASUAG, SMH
Tissot merged with watch company Omega SA
Omega SA is a Swiss luxury watchmaker based in Biel/Bienne, Switzerland. Founded by Louis Brandt in La Chaux-de-Fonds in 1848, the company formerly operated as ''La Generale Watch Co.'' until incorporating the name ''Omega'' in 1903, becoming ...
in 1930, forming SSIH (Société Suisse pour l'Industrie Horlogère),[ and Tissot-Omega watches from this era are sought after by collectors.
Tissot's first engagement as an official timekeeper was in 1938 where they timed a series of ski races in ]Villars-sur-Ollon
Villars-sur-Ollon, commonly referred to as Villars, is a village in Switzerland in the canton of Vaud, part of the municipality of Ollon.
Description
Geography and skiing network
Villars overlooks the Rhône valley from an altitude of . Th ...
, near the company's home town in the Jura mountains. Tissot was used for timing downhill skiing in Switzerland in 1938, and for the Davis Cup in 1957.
SSIH-ASUAG was formed in 1983 (Allgemeine Schweizerische Uhrenindustrie Aktiengesellschaft, ASUAG, was a holding company supplying the watch industry), then SMH (Société Suisse de Microélectronique et
d’horlogerie; 1983–1985).[
]
Swatch subsidiary
SMH took the name of ''the Swatch Group'' in 1998.[ Tissot SA remained in ]Le Locle
Le Locle (; german: Luggli) is a municipality in the Canton of Neuchâtel in Switzerland.
It is situated in the Jura Mountains, a few kilometers from the city of La Chaux-de-Fonds.
It is the third smallest city in Switzerland (in Switzerland ...
, Switzerland, and marketed in 160 countries. Tissot watches are classified by the Swatch Group as "mid-range market" products.
Tissot is an official timekeeper for the world championships in cycling, motorcycling, fencing and ice hockey, etc. Tissot was a sponsor for the Formula One car-racing teams Lotus, Renault, and Sauber. In the past handheld stopwatches were sufficient to provide official timings; in more recent times manufacturers and sporting bodies together develop more accurate systems for specific events. In competitive cycling, for instance, sensors are placed on the bikes and track, and linked by computers to provide track timings and performance data.
Motto and slogan
The company motto/slogan of Tissot is "Innovators by Tradition" and its mission statement is "gold value at silver price".
Watch manufacturing
Notable inventions
Tissot introduced the first mass-produced pocket watch as well as the first pocket watch with two time zones in 1853 and the first anti-magnetic watch, in 1929–30. Tissot was also one of the first companies to manufacture an antimagnetic wristwatch in the early 1930s. The Tissot company was also the first to make watches out of plastic (Idea 2001 in 1971), stone (the Alpine granite
Granite () is a coarse-grained ( phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies un ...
RockWatch in 1985), mother of pearl (the Pearl watch in 1987), and wood (the Wood watch in 1988).
Tissot introduced its first tactile watch, with "T-Touch," technology in 1999; watches containing this technology have touch-sensitive sapphire crystals to control various functions including compass, barometer, altimeter and thermometer. The 2014 T-Touch Expert Solar and T-Touch Lady Solar had 25 functions.
Gallery
File:Tissot_Couturier_watch_on_hand.jpg, Tissot Couturier
File:Tissot Handaufzug, 1958.jpg, Tissot 1958
File:Tissot Twotimer.jpg, Tissot Twotimer, 1990
File:Tissot PRC 200 T17.1.586.52.jpg, Tissot PRC 200 (T17.1.586.52)
File:Tissot pocket watch, open - 20110212.jpg, Tissot pocket watch, open
Marketing
Tissot has partnered with a wide range of celebrities from basketball players, actors, cricket players, to MotoGP racers to be their brand ambassadors. Tissot brand ambassadors have included: Tony Parker
William Anthony Parker Jr. (born 17 May 1982) is a French-American former professional basketball player and majority owner of ASVEL Basket in LNB Pro A. Himself the son of a basketball pro, Parker started his career at Paris Basket Racing in ...
, Liu Yi Fei
Crystal Liu (born An Feng; August 25, 1987), better known by her stage name Liu Yifei (), is a Chinese-American actress, singer, and model. She has appeared multiple times on ''Forbes'' China Celebrity 100 list and was named one of the New Four D ...
, Virat Kohli, Deepika Padukone
Deepika Padukone ( or ; born 5 January 1986) is an Indian actress who works in Hindi films. She is one of the highest-paid actresses in India, and her accolades include three Filmfare Awards. She features in listings of the nation's most p ...
, Huang Xiaoming
Huang Xiaoming or Mark Huang (, born 13 November 1977) is a Chinese actor, singer, and model. He graduated from the Performance Institute of the Beijing Film Academy in 2000. Huang first rose to prominence in 2001 for playing Emperor Wu of Han in ...
, Jorge Lorenzo, Thomas Lüthi, Neha Kakkar
Neha Kakkar Singh (; née Kakkar; born 6 June 1988), is an Indian playback singer. She is the younger sister of playback singer Sonu Kakkar. She began performing at a very early age at religious events. In 2005, she participated in the second s ...
, Marc Márquez
Marc Márquez Alentà (born 17 February 1993) is a Spanish professional Grand Prix motorcycle road racer, who has raced for Honda's factory team since his MotoGP debut in 2013. Born in Cervera, Catalonia, Spain, he is nicknamed the 'Ant of C ...
and Rana Daggubati
Ramanaidu "Rana" Daggubati (; born 14 December 1984) is an Indian actor and producer known primarily for his work in Telugu language films, in addition to Hindi and Tamil languages. Rana is described as one of the few actors in India who were ...
.
Clientele
Tissot watches have been worn by the Princess of Wales
Princess of Wales (Welsh: ''Tywysoges Cymru'') is a courtesy title used since the 14th century by the wife of the heir apparent to the English and later British throne. The current title-holder is Catherine (née Middleton).
The title was fi ...
, Sarah Bernhardt
Sarah Bernhardt (; born Henriette-Rosine Bernard; 22 or 23 October 1844 – 26 March 1923) was a French stage actress who starred in some of the most popular French plays of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, including ''La Dame Aux Cameli ...
, singer Carmen Miranda
Carmen Miranda, (; born Maria do Carmo Miranda da Cunha, 9 February 1909 – 5 August 1955) was a Portuguese-born Brazilian samba singer, dancer, Broadway actress and film star who was active from the late 1920s onwards. Nicknamed "The Br ...
, Grace Kelly
Grace Patricia Kelly (November 12, 1929 – September 14, 1982) was an American actress who, after starring in several significant films in the early to mid-1950s, became Princess of Monaco by marrying Prince Rainier III in April 1956.
Kelly ...
, Elvis Presley
Elvis Aaron Presley (January 8, 1935 – August 16, 1977), or simply Elvis, was an American singer and actor. Dubbed the " King of Rock and Roll", he is regarded as one of the most significant cultural figures of the 20th century. His ener ...
, and Nelson Mandela
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (; ; 18 July 1918 – 5 December 2013) was a South African anti-apartheid activist who served as the first president of South Africa from 1994 to 1999. He was the country's first black head of state and the ...
.
In popular culture
James Stewart
James Maitland Stewart (May 20, 1908 – July 2, 1997) was an American actor and military pilot. Known for his distinctive drawl and everyman screen persona, Stewart's film career spanned 80 films from 1935 to 1991. With the strong morality ...
wore a Tissot watch in ''Rear Window
''Rear Window'' is a 1954 American mystery thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and written by John Michael Hayes based on Cornell Woolrich's 1942 short story "It Had to Be Murder". Originally released by Paramount Pictures, the film st ...
''. T-Touch watches have been worn by Angelina Jolie
Angelina Jolie (; born Angelina Jolie Voight; June 4, 1975) is an American actress, filmmaker, humanitarian and former Special Envoy to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. The recipient of numerous accolades, including an Academy Award ...
in the movies '' Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life'' and '' Mr. & Mrs. Smith''. Simon Pegg
Simon John Pegg (né Beckingham; born 14 February 1970) is an English actor, comedian, screenwriter, and producer. He came to prominence in the UK as the co-creator of the Channel 4 sitcom ''Spaced'' (1999–2001), directed by Edgar Wright. H ...
wore a T-Touch in '' Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation''.
Sponsorships
Tissot has been the official timekeeper responsible for timing in several sports including MotoGP, ice hockey, cycling, the International Basketball Federation (FIBA) the Fencing World Championships, the Women's National Basketball Association
The Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) is an American professional basketball league. It is composed of twelve teams, all based in the United States. The league was founded on April 22, 1996, as the women's counterpart to the Nati ...
, for many years. In basketball it has sponsored the Swiss national team, the Chinese Basketball Association
The Chinese Basketball Association (), often abbreviated as the CBA, is the first-tier professional men's basketball league in China.
The league is commonly known by fans as the CBA, and this acronym is even used in Chinese on a regular basis ...
, the NBA and other related events, teams, and organizations. On November 20, 2019, it was announced that Tissot would serve as the official timekeeper and results service for the 2022 World Games
The 2022 World Games were an international multi-sport event held from July 7 to 17, 2022, in Birmingham, Alabama, United States. They were the 11th World Games, a multi-sport event featuring disciplines of Olympic sports and other competitions ...
.Tissot Official Timekeeper of The World Games 2021
The World Games, Retrieved 16 July 2022
See also
* List of watch manufacturers
Watchmakers
This list is a duplicate of :Watchmakers, which will likely be more up-to-date and complete. Manufacturers that are named after the founder are sorted by surname. Names in this list require an article about the watch brand or watchma ...
* Swiss Made
References
External links
*
{{Authority control
The Swatch Group
1853 establishments in Switzerland
Swiss companies established in 1853
Manufacturing companies established in 1853
Le Locle
Swiss watch brands
Watch manufacturing companies of Switzerland
Companies based in the canton of Neuchâtel