Climbing (Again) To The Zenith

Before Julien Tornare joined as CEO in 2017, Zenith was in dire need of a revival. Today, they're back on track and they can't make watches fast enough

- JONATHAN HO

IN JUNE OF 2022, Zenith launched a marketing campaign called “Master of Chronographs” to highlight the company’s 157 years of experience creating precision time instruments, most notably the 1969 El Primero, the first self-winding, fully integrated, high-frequency chronograph calibre.

It’s hard to believe that the company nearly went bankrupt when it embraced quartz technology four decades ago. Thankfully, the head watchmaker at Zenith workshop 4, Charles Vermot, had the good sense to disobey his new American owners and hide the dies and punches needed to produce the components of the mechanical marvel behind a wall in a dusty attic.

In the early 1980s, when demand for mechanical watches began to rise again, Zenith began supplying some of its movements to other brands, including Rolex. A 10-year contract later, the first Daytona Chronographs equipped with a Zenith movement were delivered in 1988, allowing the Manufacture to relaunch production.

In the 1990s, following another golden age in mechanical watchmaking, luxury giant LVMH (Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton) came knocking at the end of the decade, taking over the company in 2001 and cementing its positioning in the higher end of the segment with its horological feats. Tourbillons followed, including a gyroscopic version of the gravity-defying escapement, but its call to 21st-century fame lay in the El Primero Striking 10th launched in 2010 featuring the first automatic movement capable of measuring and displaying tenths of a second.