THE ZENITH OF ALL CHRONOGRAPHS

3rd November 2017

Le Locle’s favourite son is experiencing a rampant revival, underpinned as ever by its legendary El Primero movement. Words by Alex Doak.

In 1975, a genial man called Charles Vermot was in charge of Workshop 4 at Zenith. Here, for the past six years, every El Primero chronograph movement had completed its nine-month journey to final assembly, after no less than 2,500 operations at the expert hands of some 300 artisans. Charley, as his colleagues knew him, was about to celebrate 40 years of service – but it was a sad anniversary. The order had come in from the United States headquarters of the Zenith Radio Corporation to cease all production of mechanical watches immediately. Space had to be made for the newfangled quartz technology, which meant scrapping the El Primero’s tooling at the price of molten metal. Not to mention scrapping one of the most revolutionary chronographs ever conceived – the first one to self-wind, no less.

Charley had other ideas, though.

Refusing to see a decade of his life tossed on the scrap heap, over the next few evenings he furtively relocated not only the pressing tools but also the cams and cutting tools to an attic. Each part was labelled and listed, and he meticulously copied out the entire production process into an accompanying file. And without knowing it, secured his status as a future hero.

Come the mid-Eighties, as Vermot and so many watchmakers predicted, interest in fine mechanical watches was back on the upswing. The Swiss consortium that now owned Zenith naturally turned to the mothballed El Primero, its crowning glory of 1969, which they could proudly advertise not only as the world’s first automatic chronograph but also the first to beat at the highly precise frequency of 36,000 vibrations per hour, or 5 Hertz (most others are 28,800vph, or 4Hz).

But when it came to looking for that particular dustcover to triumphantly whisk off, no one could shed any light. Except, of course, for one recently retired watchmaker. He nodded knowingly, trudged back down the road to the factory and led the new management to a dusty attic…

Yet still, after 300 patents, 600 movement variations and 2,333 prizes in the field of chronometry, the company finds itself firmly rooted in El Primero

It’s now been over 150 years since a 22-year-old Georges Favre-Jacot founded Zenith in Le Locle village. Despite his youth, he was a revolutionary – his was the only factory in the Swiss Jura mountains to be fitted with electric lighting and the only one to bring all of watchmaking’s key skills beneath one roof, rather than rely on the sprawling cottage industry of component makers dotted throughout the surrounding valleys.

Yet still, after 300 patents, 600 movement variations and 2,333 prizes in the field of chronometry, the company finds itself firmly rooted in El Primero. Based around the core Chronomaster range, we now have a split-seconds rattrapante model, this year’s gorgeously pared-back and colourful Heritage 146, the sleekly metallic new Range Rover editions, and even a whirring, merry-go-round tourbillon variation.

The fairground comparison isn’t a bad one, in fact. For, despite the relief felt at traditional watchmaking’s resurgence and the El Primero’s Second Coming, things have still been a veritable roller-coaster ride, chez Zenith. Unlike the steady success of LVMH stablemate TAG Heuer, the more luxurious proposition of Zenith has been trickier to define. At its weirdest, the pre-crash boom years of the mid-Noughties saw flamboyant CEO Thierry Nataf launching a catalogue of ever-more-steroidal fighter jets for the wrist – watches that Jerry Bruckheimer and Don Simpson might have dreamt up while tooling their white Testarossa round Miami Beach.

Its zenith, if you like, was reached with the butch and boosted ‘Defy’ range of 2006. Unfairly borrowing its name from a tastefully angular Seventies chronograph, everything is forgiven as the current-era Zenith enters it’s most enduringly purple patch with a now-faithful relaunch of the Defy, kitted out with some startlingly innovative horological innovation. Innovation that, on consideration, is exactly what Zenith was all about in the first place.

As the previous pages attest, it’s all down to Jean-Claude Biver of course – the watch boss at luxury-goods behemoth LVMH, who has a legendary reputation for turning beleaguered brands on a sixpence.

A modern-day Georges Favre-Jacot, Biver is a revolutionary who could be partly credited for reviving interest in mechanical watches in the Eighties when everyone was wearing quartz. His crowning achievement was establishing Hublot as one of the biggest players (the Big Bang was all his idea) and having tended to TAG, his final tenure at Zenith finally sees full democratisation of the LVMH Group’s extensive watchmaking capabilities.

First up for Zenith v3.0, in a reassertion of El Primero’s importance at the core of the brand, the stopwatch function of 2017’s ‘Defy El Primero 21’ (groovy Seventies styling now intact) is in fact powered by a totally separate, high-frequency geartrain ticking at the breakneck speed of 360,000 vibrations per hour (or 50Hz). The tech is derived from a short-lived ‘haute horologerie’ experiment at TAG in 2011, and feels far more at home here. In a dazzling exaggeration of El Primero’s high-frequency capability, the central sweep-seconds hand whizzes round the dial once a second and keeps time to a hundredth of a second, rather than a tenth.

Almost as a sidenote, both of the Defy El Primero 21’s ticking hair’s-breadth balance springs are made from pure carbon nanotube. Antimagnetic, durable, precisely manufactured, and downright cool to boot.

As a first move, it’s tantamount to leapfrogging your pawns with a knight. But with Biver on board at Zenith, you can be sure this is no bluff. The legend of El Primero is secured for future generations and we can be even more grateful for Charles Vermot’s brave forethought back in 1975.

Zenith is available online and in our ROX Argyll Arcade boutique.

CONTINUE READING

Founded in 1865 by Swiss watchmaking legend Georges Favre-Jacot, Zenith watches are some of the most groundbreaking and spectacular timepieces on the market. Driven by the idea of creating the most accurate and reliable watches of his time, Favre-Jacot revolutionised the way they were created into a fascinating and all-encompassing art.

Outspoken maven of the Swiss watch industry, Jean-Claude Biver is in the throes of transforming Zenith, which is exciting news – especially if Hublot is anything to go by. Words by Alex Doak.

The definitive directory of what you should be wearing on your wrist right now. Words by Alex Doak.