Tissot

Tissot is a Swiss watch manufacturer, currently part of the Swatch Group's Middle Range.

Tissot ist a Swiss watch manufacturer of the Swatch Group and is located in Le Locle in the canton of Neuchâtel.

Charles Félicien Tissot (1804 to 1873) founded with his son Charles-Emile (1830 to 1910) in 1853 in Le Locle a workshop, where they produced pocket watches with supplied parts. Charles-Emile traveled frequently to Russia and to the United States to sell their products. His son Charles (1860-1936) took over the company in 1883 and continued the sales tours. At the instigation of Charles's son Paul (1890-1951), who now also belonged to the company, one began to manufacture wristwatches in 1915. In 1920 one extended the activity to an own movements production.

In 1929 Tissot and Omega merged into the Société Suisse pour l'Industrie Horlogère SA (SSIH). Tissot used now ebauche movements of other producers; in 1957 they built a new factory building. In the seventies also Tissot was hit severely by the quartz crisis. In 1977 the branch factories in Neuchâtel and La Chaux-de-Fonds closed and abandoned manufacturing their own watch movements completely. However, Tissot continued to record losses, so that in 1983 a collapse of the company seemed imminent. Eventually the rescue was brought 1985 by the merger of the SSIH and the ASUAG (Allgemeine Schweizerische Uhren AG / General Swiss watches AG) for the Swatch Group, headed by Nicolas Hayek, which led to an extensive reorganization of the Swiss watch industry and the opening up of new markets.

In the 1980s and 1990s, Tissot made ​​a name with a series of fashionable wristwatches with cases made ​​of unusual materials such as granite (“Rockwatch”, 1987) and wood (“Woodwatch”, 1991).

Today the collection is divided into a total of seven product ranges

• T-Sport Sports and dive watches.
• T-Tactile Multifunction watches, where functions such as chronograph, altimeter, compass, alarm function, thermometer, barometer, date and time can be fetched by touching the sensor-equipped watch glass.
• T-Trend Ladies watches in a variety of fashionable designs
• T-Classic Steel watches in mostly classical, discreet design
• Heritage Watches in retro style, launched on the occasion of the 150-year company anniversary in 2003
• Pocket Watch pocket watches.
• T-Gold Jewelry Watches with gilded boxes, some in retro style

Many watches are offered in several technical variations; so there are many models with both automatic as well as with quartz movement, and occasionally also with solar cells as power source. Most models are also offered in various designs, such as optionally with a case in stainless steel, gold, titanium, platinum or combinations of several metals (bicolor), with differently designed dials and various types of bracelets.

In 2023, as a tribute to the watchmaking tradition, the Tissot Heritage 1938 collection brings back designs from the past: the models Heritage Small Second Auto COSC 1938 and Heritage Gent Auto COSC 1938. They are equipped with the COSC-certified automatic movements ETA 2895-2 and ETA 2824-2, which can be seen through the transparent caseback.

• Estelle Fallet TISSOT - 150 Years of History, 1853-2003. Tissot self-publishing 2003

• Tissot, official website