subject: History of Tissot [print this page] Father and son Charles-Felicien and Charles-Emile Tissot founded a watchmaker company called Tissot (not to be confused with another watch brand Mathey-Tissot) as far back as 1853 in a serene beautiful town called Le Locle located in the Neuchatel area of the Jura Mountains, Switzerland.
Since day one, Tissot has earned a reputable prestige in producing Swiss quality timepieces and selling them in a more affordable price. It is also a watch-making company that became the firsts of many historical watch records. In the year Tissot was born, it already surprised the watch lover community with its mass-produced pocket watches and its discovery in the first pocket watch with two time zones.
The younger Tissot founder, Charles-Emile, expanded the market beyond Switzerland by travelling to the Russian Empire in 1858 and managed to sell their savonnette pocket watches there.
In the mean time, Tissot's innovations were not put to rest. In 1929 to 1930, Tissot built the first anti-magnetic watch. Then in 1971, the company produced the first watches made of plastic (IDEA 2001). They also made them out of stone (the Alpine granite Rock watch) in 1985. Two years later they used mother of pearl, and in 1988 they made watches from wood.
Since it is a trend for watch companies to be part of sports events, Tissot did not miss this tradition. The company became an official timekeeper for world championships like cycling, motorcycling, fencing, cricket and ice hockey. It also participated at the Davis Cup in 1957 and Downhill Skiing Switzerland in 1938. Tissot also contributed as a key sponsor for F1 teams like Lotus, Renault and Sauber.
Tissot has always been associated with renowned figures. Sarah Bernhardt, Carmen Miranda, Elvis Presley, Grace Kelly, and even Politian Nelson Mandela are to name some. In sports world, Tissot watches were seen worn by footballer Michael Owen, first female IndyCar driver Danica Patrick, and world champion MotoGP racer Nick Hayden.
Tissot today is represented in over 150 countries. It did go under some merges in the past but they only made Tissot stronger in the business. In 1930 Tissot first merged with the Omega watch-making family and became Tissot-Omega. At the time of their merger, they became one of the biggest hits of watches sold. Then in 1983, both Tissot and Omega watches merged with the biggest watch producer and distributor in the world The Swatch Group Ltd.
Tissot is also the leading producer of the traditional Switch watch industries in terms of the number of produced units. In recent years, Tissot gained more public exposure after releasing watches with T-Touch' technology. These new production has touch-sensitive sapphire glasses. It also has compasses, barometers, altimeters and thermometers. Angelina Jolie helped make T-Touch watches famous by putting one on her wrist in the movies Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life and Mr. & Mrs. Smith.
Coming also in the future media exposure, Tissot watches will take part in the 2016 summer Olympics in Brazil as one of Swatch representatives.
