Frédérique Constant

Frédérique Constant SA

Type	Société Anonyme
Industry	Watch manufacturing
Founded	1988 by Aletta and Peter Stas
Headquarters	Geneva, Switzerland
Key people	Peter Stas, Managing Director
Products	Wrist watches
Website	www.frederique-constant.com

Frédérique Constant SA is a manufacture of luxury wrist watches based in Plan-les-Ouates, Geneva. The company was established in 1988 by Dutch entrepreneur Peter Stas and his wife Aletta Bax, and is involved in all the stages of watch production, from initial design to final assembly.^[1] Since 2002, the company has also owned Alpina Watches, a manufacturer of Swiss sports watches founded in 1883.

Frederique Constant Art Deco series

History

The company was founded in 1988 by Aletta Francoise Frédérique Stas-Bax and Peter Constant Stas.^[2] Its name is derived from the names of great-grandparents of each founder – specifically Frédérique Schreiner (1881–1969) and Constant Stas (1880–1967), the latter of which founded a company producing watch dials in 1904.^[3][4][5]

In 2002, to diversify the Frédérique Constant group, Stas and his wife acquired Alpina Watches, a manufacturer of Swiss sports watches founded in 1883.

Frederique Constant has grown into one of the larger Swiss watch manufacturers. In 2011, production reached over 120,000 watches, sold in over 2,700 points of sale in 100+ countries around the globe. Frederique Constant positions itself in the accessible luxury segment, with most of its watches selling in the price range of CHF 1,000–5,000 retail. In 2011, the company said that it expected to continue growing at an annual rate of 25%, doubling in size every three years.^[6]

Manufacture facilities

Frederique Constant operates a manufacture in Plan-les-Ouates measuring 3200 square metres, divided over four floors, with sectors for movement component production, movement assembly, watch assembly, and quality control. Numerically controlled machinery is located in a large workshop in the basement, where all component manufacturing is concentrated. Movement and watch assembly, as well as quality control, is primarily organized on the first floor.^[7]

Products and product features

Heart Beat movement

In 2001, Frederique Constant began the development of its first watch movement in co-operation with the École d'Horlogerie de Genève, École d'Ingenieurs de Genève and the Horloge Vakschool Zadkine. The Heart Beat Manufacture has a characteristic bridge for the balance wheel on the front side of the movement. Having the bridge for the balance wheel on the front side made it possible to have the spiral and fine regulation on the front side as well, creating the company's "Heart Beat" design. The company patented this construction as an innovation in watch design technology.^[6]

The company's "Heart Beat Manufacture" won the "Watch of the Year" Award of Horloges Magazine in the category up to €3000 in 2005.^[8]

As of 2014, the company has brought 15 distinct movements to the market, starting with the introduction of its original Heart Beat in 2004.^[9]

Silicon escapement wheel

Frederique Constant escapement wheel made of silicon

In February 2007, Frederique Constant began production of the Silicon escapement wheel (first introduced to the industry by Patek Philippe in 2005).^[10] The company introduced the Heart Beat Calibre FC 935 Silicium in October 2007. It implements new high tech materials to create better, more precise and more reliable mechanical watches.^[11] Deep reactive-ion etching is used to shape silicon wafers into escapement wheels, pallets, and plateaus. Silicon is lighter, harder and stronger than metal. Etched into tiny skeletal structures that would be impossible to form with metal, it becomes the featherweight heart of a mechanism that can run at a far higher accuracy. The silicon parts are virtually frictionless, so need no lubrication, and are immune to most external forces. And when bonded with a carbon coating, silicon's only real drawback, brittleness, can also be overcome.^[12][13]

Tourbillon

Frederique Constant escapement made of silicon; anker, wheel and plateau

In April 2008, Frederique Constant created a tourbillon with a silicon escape-wheel and, for the first time, an amplitude of over 300 degrees between its vertical and horizontal positions. Coupled with rapid oscillation, this gives the watch an unusually high level of precision.^[14]

Manufacture

Frederique Constant offers 15 manufacture (in-house) movements in addition to their mainstream line of ETA-powered watches. The high-end FC-9xx caliber, introduced in 2001, was joined by Tourbillon in 2008 and a mainstream FC-7xx caliber range in 2009. The addition of the second-generation manufacture movements makes the company unusual in offering a complete in-house watch for under €2,000 MSRP. Watches with in-house movements are identified with the word, "Manufacture" in their model name, or can be identified by looking for the tourbillon, FC-9xx, or FC-7xx movement in their specifications.^[15]

Worldtimer

Frederique Constant introduced a Worldtimer watch in 2012 with a unique mechanism, adjusted solely via the crown. The Worldtimer function is used by selecting the desired city and placing it at the 12 o'clock position on the dial. Internal discs automatically synchronise, and after that, it is possible to see what time it is in any of the 24 cities on the dial. In addition, thin discs also indicate at a glance whether it is day (white disc) or night (black disc).^[16]

Frederique Constant Runabout

Runabout product line

The Runabout range is a main collection of Frederique Constant and is designed to pay tribute to the runabout gentlemen's sports boats of the Roaring Twenties. The company has sponsored the Hélice Classique Genève and Lake Tahoe Concours d'Elegance boating events, which have showcased vintage wood boats.^[17][18][19]

Vintage rally line and sponsorships

Since 2004, Frederique Constant has sponsored several classic car rallies worldwide, and it develops limited-edition watches for each of these sponsorships. The sponsorships have included Healey Challenges,^[20][21] Peking to Paris,^[22] and the Carrera Panamericana.^[23]

Horological Smartwatch

In 2015, the Frederique Constant and Alpina brands introduced the "Horological Smartwatch", a smartwatch product with motion and sleep tracking functions that uses a secondary analog dial rather than a screen for its display – giving the timepiece a more classic look than other such devices.^[24][25] The lack of a display screen also provides a significant power savings – enabling a battery life of two years or more, in contrast with other smartwatches that must be charged daily.^[26] This product line uses "MotionX" core technology licensed from the California-based company Fullpower Technologies and was developed in a joint venture known as Manufacture Modules Technologies (MMT).

Brand ambassadors

The company's brand ambassadors have included the following:

• Indian model/actress Nicole Faria (Miss Earth 2010)^[27][28]
• Hong Kong actor Sean Lau^[29]
• American actress Eva Longoria^[30]
• Spanish model/actress Inés Sastre^[31]
• Dutch model Miranda Slabber (Miss Holland 2005)^[32]
• Taiwanese actress Shu Qi^[33]

Charitable activities

The company's charitable activities have included:

• Donating US$50 from each watch sold in its Double Heart Beat Collection to various charities, including those related to the heart and children.^[34]
• A US$50,000 cheque donated to the American Heart Association during its 2010 Passion Awards for Charity in New York.^[35]
• Two cheques, amounting to US$50,000 in 2008 and US$75,000 in 2011, to the International Children's Heart Foundation, an organisation that helps to diagnose and care for children with congenital heart disease in developing countries.^[34]
• Partnering with the World Heart Federation on the "Hearts of Children" campaign and in a multi-national survey conducted in Brazil, India, UK and the USA by the Federation regarding perceptions and awareness of heart disease.^[36]
• Creating exceptional and one-off pieces to raise funds for scientific and medical research on neuromuscular diseases in general and Duchenne muscular dystrophy in particular.^[37]
• Sponsoring the European Entrepreneurs of the Year awards.^[38]

See also

• List of watch manufacturers

References

External links

• Frédérique Constant Official Site