What lead to the resurgence and resurrection of the Swiss watch industry in the 1980s?

Jul 23, 2023,15:40 PM
 

I was reading a few articles on the quartz crisis and how the quartz movement nearly destroyed the swiss watch industry in the 1970s. Also I watched a good interview about Zenith and the facilities manager saving the tooling for the el primero movement.

My question is if the swiss watch industry was almost about to go out of business forever, what lead to it's resurgence in the 1980s? More specifically what drove demand for automatic swiss watches in the 1980s especially coming out of the quartz crisis? Was it the focus on luxury watches as a status symbol?

  login to reply

Comments: view entire thread

 

A great question!

 
 By: gadalex : July 23rd, 2023-16:03
If you haven't already read this article, I would recommend highly (and parts 2 to 4 as well as an overall look at the industry since the quartz revolution). www.hodinkee.com Regards, Baruch

I believe Swatch and Nicolas Hayek played a significant role

 
 By: takman : July 23rd, 2023-19:52
Though I’m not an expert… I wasn’t quite born yet 😁

Sylvester Stallone [NT]

 
 By: wean_sg : July 24th, 2023-11:52