| Favre-Leuba | |
| Type: | Subsidiary |
| Area Served: | Worldwide |
| Founders: | Abraham Favre Frederic Favre Henry-Louis Favre |
| Industry: | Watch manufacturing |
| Products: | Luxury Watches |
| Parent: | Titan Industries Ltd |
| Location City: | Grenchen |
| Location Country: | Switzerland |
Favre Leuba is a Swiss luxury wristwatch manufacturer headquartered in Grenchen, Switzerland, and formerly a pioneer in watch design, manufacturing and distribution. The brand was established in 1737, following the registration of Abraham Favre as a watchmaker. Favre Leuba is the second-oldest Swiss watch brand, with Blancpain having been founded two years earlier in 1735.[1]
An archival document states that Abraham Favre (1702 - 1790) was a watchmaker with his own workshop on 13 March 1737.[2] It was his son, also by the name of Abraham Favre, who turned his father's occupation into a business. In 1792, Abraham Favre and his two sons, Frederic and Henry-Louis, founded the company A. Favre & Fils in Le Locle. Abraham Favre had always concentrated on improving the technology of his watches, their properties at different temperatures, and the materials used in watchmaking to make more reliable and accurate movements.[3]
Frederic Favre's son, Henry-Augustus, only 19 at the time, collaborated with Auguste Leuba, a member of a family of watchmakers and merchants, creating the brand name Favre-Leuba in 1815 and broadening the family business to the world market.[4]
Fritz Favre, who married Adele-Fanny Leuba in 1855, expanded the business across Europe, the Americas and Asia. He participated in various national and international exhibitions, such as the Universal Exhibition in London in 1851, the New York Fair in 1853, and also won many accolades for the brand.
In 1865, Fritz Favre travelled to India and released his own products there, making the country a very important market for Favre-Leuba and this was the first Swiss company from the industry to have established itself in that country.
Henry A Favre, born in 1908, part of the seventh generation, continued to grow and develop the business by setting up offices and employing representatives across South America, Africa, the Middle-East, Far-East and European markets. He, along with his father & other predecessors from the sixth generation, was responsible for the launch of many iconic pieces.
Around 1925, Favre-Leuba produced a single button chronograph and created the Reverso mechanism in 1940. The company made innovations, such as the FL101 movement manufactured in 1955. In 1957, they designed their automatic calibers, FL103 & 104. The new FL251 caliber, an extra-flat, twin-barrel with a central second hand and a power reserve of 50 hours was launched in 1962.
In 1962, the hand winding wristwatch, Bivouac, which was the first ever mechanical watch with altimeter & aneroid barometer was launched. Paul-Emile Victor was one of the first to wear this piece during his Antarctica expedition while Michel Vaucher & Walter Bonatti used it while summiting the Grandes Jorasses in the Alps.
In 1964, one of the first ever dive watches, Deep Blue, water resistant up to 200m, was launched, followed by the Bathy in 1968, the first mechanical watch that not only indicated the dive time and duration, but also accurately measured the dive depth.
In 1968, Favre-Leuba added an automatic winding to its double-barrel calibers, making it one of the first brands to use this combination in series production. The new movements were available with or without calendar function.
Florian A. Favre and Eric A. Favre, sons of Henry A. Favre, along with Frederic A. Favre, grandson of Fritz-Augustus Favre, represented the eighth generation. They were the Board of Directors of Favre-Leuba until the management of the company passed out of the hands of the family. The challenge brought about by the relatively inexpensive quartz movement introduced in 1969 greatly increased competition for the company's comparatively expensive mechanical watches, forcing the family to sell their company in 1985.[5] Afterwards, the company passed through different hands, such as Benedom SA and LVMH. In 2007, Favre-Leuba returned to the watch industry with the launch of three new models: The Mercury Collection.
On 16 November 2011, Titan Company, the watch manufacturing company of the Tata Group, acquired the brand Favre-Leuba.[6]
After the sale to the Titan Group, they released new collections of watches in 2016, their Raider and Chief Collections, led by their flagship model, the Raider Harpoon.
At BaselWorld 2017, they launched the Raider Bivouac 9000. The only watch to measure altitude to 9000m mechanically, the Raider Bivouac 9000 was awarded the best watch in the New Star category by WatchStars. The 70 member jury comprising watch expert, journalists, collectors chose 35 watches and of this voted for the New Star 2018 winner.[7]
In 2017, Favre-Leuba supported many athletes and explorers such as Arctic Mission led by Pen Hadow. The company also partnered with Satyarup Siddhanta, the youngest mountaineer in the world and the first from India to climb both the Seven Summits and Volcanic Seven Summits.[8]
Favre-Leuba has collaborated with professional mountaineers such as Adrian Ballinger, who, along with his team, summited Mount Everest with the Raider Bivouac 9000 on 20 May 2018.[9] [10] With Ballinger's expedition, the Raider Bivouac 9000 set a record as the only mechanical wristwatch equipped with an aneroid barometer to work on Mount Everest.
The brand also collaborated with Emily Harrington, who used the same watch in her 2018 expedition. Other partners of the brand include Swiss athletes Ralph Weber, Nicolas Hojac, and Ricardo Feller.
In Japan, Favre-Leuba ambassador Sayuri Kinoshita has broken the world record of a constant no fin dive while Taisuke Kusunoki represents the brand in the sport of free ride skiing.
2018 marks the 50th anniversary of the Bathy launched in 1968. This dive instrument was the first to display dive depth using a central hand. The brand pays homage to this namesake with the Raider Bathy 120 MemoDepth, which measures and displays depth down to 120m, more than double that of the original Bathy.