Jean-Francoise Bautte began manufacturing watches at the tender age of 19 in 1791 and quickly gained a reputation for high quality timepieces in the royal courts of Europe

His work lived on thanks to Girard-Perregaux, a company founded in 1856 and named after Constant and Marie, husband and wife with a strong background in the watchmaking industry. Girard-Perregaux carried on the idea introduced by Bautte of mastering all the required horological skills in-house to create a watch, making it one of the oldest manufactures to date.

The craftsmanship and dedication of Girard-Perregaux to the art of watchmaking has stayed unchanged over the years and this is evident through the iconic Three Bridges collection, which features a movement where three identically symmetrical visible bridges support the tourbillon, the barrel, and the gear train of the minute and hour hands. This design had a substantial impact at the Paris Universal Exhibitions where it won the prizes in 1867 and 1889. There is also the timeless style of the Laureato with its integrated bracelet and iconic look of the 1970s, the captivating Cat’s Eye with its unusual elongated oval case or the recently reintroduced, as a one off, digital display watch with a quirky design, the Casquette.

Girard-Perregaux was an early innovator in the field of electronic quartz watches and produced the first commercially available Swiss quartz watch whilst establishing 32,768 Hz as the universal frequency for the industry. These innovations all have an element of disruption in common; a desire to turn watchmaking upside-down.

Our partnership with Girard-Perregaux is on a trajectory, working in closer partnership through increased visibility within our showrooms and online, along with investment in marketing activations. By maintaining our focus on the brand’s classic collections, we have driven omnichannel sales across performance marketing and social media and were able to offer an unforgettable opportunity for our most loyal clients by hosting them at the Formula 1 Championship at Silverstone and a peek behind the scenes at the Aston Martin factory.