Girard-Perregaux

The company traces to Jean-François Bautte, who was making watches in Geneva by 1791, and takes its name from the 1854 marriage of Constant Girard and Marie Perregaux, which joined two watchmaking families.

Its signature is a bridge. Constant Girard's Tourbillon with Three Gold Bridges, developed from 1867 and patented in the United States in 1884, arranged the barrel, gear train, and tourbillon in a line beneath three parallel arrow-shaped bridges — turning the movement architecture itself into the design. Most decorative watchmaking hides its structure; this made structure the ornament. It remains the house's defining object.

Girard-Perregaux also has a serious claim on modern quartz: in 1971 it developed a quartz wristwatch calibre oscillating at 32,768 Hz, and that frequency became the industry standard used in essentially every quartz watch since.

The company supplied precision pocket watches to the German Imperial Navy in the 1880s, an early example of the wristwatch being taken seriously as a professional instrument.

Modern collections include the Laureato, an integrated-bracelet sports watch dating from 1975 that predates most of its rivals, and the Free Bridge and Neo lines, which rework the bridge architecture in contemporary materials. The house is owned by Kering.

Girard-Perregaux holds 36 models, from £3,450 to £146,000. Half cost less than £15,600, and a quarter less than £12,300. 36 of 36 are automatic. 30 are stocked by more than one retailer, giving 71 offers in total. Prices are checked nightly against the retailers’ own feeds.

1791

Jean-François Bautte begins watchmaking in Geneva.

1854

Constant Girard and Marie Perregaux marry, uniting the names.

1867

The Three Gold Bridges tourbillon is developed.

1971

Develops the 32,768 Hz quartz standard.

1975

The Laureato launches.