Watch History & Heritage
The watch we wear today is the product of two centuries of war, science, sport and rivalry. This hub tells that story: how the pocket watch gave way to the wristwatch in the trenches of the First World War; how Switzerland and Japan built two great, very different watchmaking traditions; how the quartz revolution of 1969 nearly ended mechanical watchmaking; and how the dive, pilot, military and chronograph watches each earned their distinctive shapes by solving a real problem. It is grounded in the living heritage we still stock -- Tissot, founded in 1853, and Citizen, the inventor of light-power.
A timeline of the wristwatch
1853 Tissot founded·1910s WWI puts watches on the wrist·1920s Self-winding wristwatch·1950s The dive watch is born·1969 First quartz wristwatch·1970s The quartz crisis·1976 Citizen Eco-Drive light-power·Today Mechanical & light-power side by side
Origins
History of the Wristwatch
The wristwatch began as a curiosity for women and a tool for soldiers. The pocket watch ruled for centuries, until the trenches of the First World War put the watch on the wrist for good.
From pocket to wrist
For most of the watch's life, a gentleman kept his timepiece in a waistcoat pocket on a chain, and a wristwatch -- then called a wristlet -- was considered a lady's ornament. The shift came from necessity. Soldiers needed both hands free and the time at a glance, so officers began strapping small watches to their wrists. Field experience in the Boer War and then, decisively, the First World War turned the wristwatch from a novelty into standard kit. By the 1920s a man wearing a watch on his wrist was no longer remarkable but modern.
Why the war changed everything
Coordinated artillery barrages and synchronised advances over the top demanded that every officer read the same second. Fumbling for a pocket watch under fire was dangerous, so manufacturers fitted lugs to small pocket movements and added luminous radium dials and protective grilles over the glass. These so-called trench watches were the direct ancestors of every wristwatch worn today. When the soldiers came home, they kept their watches on, and the industry followed the demand.
The shape of things to come
By the late 1920s the wristwatch was established, waterproof cases and self-winding rotors were on the horizon, and the stage was set for the dive, pilot and chronograph watches that the rest of this hub traces. Early milestones such as the first self-winding and waterproof wristwatches are credited to various Swiss houses of the period. The pocket watch slipped quietly into retirement.
History of Mechanical Watches
Centuries of refinement turned a clumsy spring-driven box into a jewelled precision instrument. The story of mechanical watchmaking is the story of the escapement -- the gate that tames a coiled spring.
The long road from the mainspring
Mechanical timekeeping was freed from the wall when craftsmen learned to power a movement with a coiled mainspring instead of a hanging weight, making portable clocks and, eventually, watches possible. The early ones were crude and wildly inaccurate, often losing or gaining hours a day. Progress came step by step over generations -- better springs, finer gearing, and above all better escapements to release the spring's energy in measured, even beats rather than a rush.
The escapement lineage
The single thread running through mechanical history is the escapement. Early verge escapements gave way to more stable designs, and the breakthrough that still rules today is the Swiss lever escapement, which lets the balance swing freely between precise, equal nudges. Paired with the balance wheel and hairspring -- the watch's harmonic heart -- it brought accuracy from hours to seconds a day. Jewelled bearings of synthetic ruby cut friction at the busiest pivots, so a well-made movement could run for decades. For the working detail of these parts, see our movements hub.
Why mechanical watches endured
Quartz could have ended the mechanical watch, yet it survived and thrives -- because a mechanical movement is an heirloom of craft, a tiny machine you can service and hand down across generations. The finest historic chronometry was driven by the search for accurate timekeeping at sea. Today that tradition lives on in Swiss workhorse calibres like Tissot's, a direct descendant of this centuries-long refinement.
Evolution of the Automatic
The self-winding watch freed wearers from the daily ritual of the crown. A swinging weight that harvests the motion of the wrist took a century to perfect -- and now powers most mechanical watches sold.
Winding without thinking
The idea is elegant: let the movement of your arm wind the watch for you. The principle was first applied to pocket watches with a weight that shifted as the owner walked, but it was the wristwatch that made self-winding truly practical, because the wrist moves constantly through the day. The key was a rotor -- a semicircular weight pivoting on the back of the movement -- that swings with every gesture and feeds that energy back into the mainspring.
From bumper to full rotor
Early self-winding wristwatches used a bumper system, where the weight swung between two springs and tapped back and forth -- you could feel and hear it. The decisive advance was the full-rotor design, a weight that spins a complete circle on a central pivot, winding far more efficiently in both directions. That layout, refined through the mid twentieth century, is essentially what sits in every automatic watch today. For how the rotor actually works, see the movements hub.
The long-reserve era
The modern chapter is about power reserve -- how long an automatic keeps running once taken off. Where older automatics held a day and a half, today's long-runners stretch to three days and beyond. Tissot's Powermatic 80, with its 80-hour reserve and anti-magnetic Nivachron hairspring, is the everyday expression of that progress: wind it by wearing it, leave it off all weekend, and it is still ticking on Monday. Browse Tissot watches to see the lineage continued.
National Traditions
Swiss Watchmaking
Switzerland turned watchmaking into a national art. From farmhouse workshops in the Jura mountains grew the world's benchmark for precision and finishing -- and houses like Tissot, founded in 1853, that still lead it.
Born in the Jura valleys
Swiss watchmaking grew out of necessity in the high valleys of the Jura, where long, snowbound winters left farming families time to work at fine, indoor crafts. Geneva's goldsmiths and the watchmakers of the Vallee de Joux and Le Locle built a cottage industry where each specialist made one part -- a wheel, a spring, a case -- and an assembler brought them together. This division of skilled labour, concentrated in a small mountainous region, gave Switzerland an unmatched depth of horological talent that endures today.
Tissot and the heritage of Le Locle
Among the houses born in this tradition is Tissot, founded in 1853 in Le Locle by Charles-Felicien Tissot and his son Charles-Emile. From the start the firm balanced craft with innovation -- it was an early adopter of mass-production methods that made fine Swiss watches more widely affordable, and it has carried that blend of heritage and accessibility for over 170 years. The modern Powermatic 80 automatic and the COSC-grade precision of its sports lines are the living continuation of that 1853 lineage. Browse Tissot watches to see it.
The Swiss Made benchmark
Over the twentieth century Swiss Made became the world's shorthand for quality, eventually protected by law -- a watch can only carry the label if a high proportion of its value and its key manufacturing steps are Swiss. Many of the most famous luxury names also trace their roots to this same Jura tradition. For OD's, Tissot is the Swiss story we tell -- benchmark watchmaking at a price you can actually wear.
Japanese Watchmaking
Japan arrived later but reshaped the whole industry. Pursuing reliable, accessible engineering, its makers gave the world quartz, light-power and some of the most advanced movements ever built -- with Citizen at the heart of the story.
A different philosophy
Where Switzerland prized tradition and finishing, Japan's watchmakers pursued reliability, precision and value through relentless engineering. The result was a horological culture that treated the watch as a problem to be solved better and made more affordable, year after year. That mindset produced movements famed for dependability -- workhorse automatics that simply run -- and a willingness to abandon centuries of mechanical orthodoxy when a better idea came along.
Citizen and the spirit of innovation
Citizen is one of the pillars of that tradition. Founded in Tokyo, it grew from pocket watches into a global powerhouse with a defining ambition: to make accurate, well-made watches available to ordinary people -- the name itself speaks to that. Its great contribution is Eco-Drive, the light-powered technology that charges from any light and runs for the life of the watch with no battery to replace. Citizen also pushed into high-accuracy quartz, satellite syncing and its scratch-resistant Super Titanium. Browse Citizen watches to explore it.
Reshaping the world's wrist
Japanese engineering did not just add to watchmaking -- it transformed the economics of the whole industry, putting reliable, accurate timekeeping within everyone's reach. The first quartz wristwatch, launched at the very end of the 1960s, was a Japanese achievement that triggered a global upheaval -- the story told in the next entry. Citizen's light-powered, set-and-forget watches are the heritage we carry forward.
The Quartz Revolution / Crisis
On Christmas Day 1969 the first quartz wristwatch went on sale and the industry changed forever. Battery-powered accuracy was so cheap and so good that it nearly wiped out traditional watchmaking -- depending on where you stood, a revolution or a crisis.
Christmas 1969 and the Astron
The modern era began with a single watch: the world's first quartz wristwatch, unveiled in Japan and going on sale on 25 December 1969. That pioneering model, the Astron, was a Seiko -- a watershed moment for the whole industry. A quartz crystal vibrating tens of thousands of times a second, divided down by a circuit, kept time to seconds a month -- accuracy a mechanical watch could never touch, for a fraction of the eventual cost. The principle is explained in our Swiss Quartz guide.
Revolution or crisis?
What looked like a triumph of engineering became an existential threat to Switzerland. Through the 1970s, cheap, ultra-accurate quartz watches flooded the market, and demand for traditional mechanical Swiss watches collapsed. Whole sections of the Jura industry shut down and the workforce shrank dramatically -- the period the Swiss still call the quartz crisis. The same technology was a revolution for consumers and a catastrophe for the old order, all at once.
Survival and balance
Switzerland fought back by embracing quartz itself and by repositioning the mechanical watch as an object of craft and emotion rather than mere utility -- a strategy that saved the industry and underpins its luxury status today. Both stories live on in our cabinets: Swiss-quartz and mechanical Tissot on one side, Japanese light-powered Citizen on the other -- the very technologies that fought the quartz war, now sitting peacefully side by side.
Tool-Watch Lineages
History of the Dive Watch
The dive watch was born of necessity in the 1950s, when scuba diving became a sport and divers needed a rugged, legible, waterproof timer they could trust with their lives. The 200m benchmark and the rotating bezel still define the breed.
The 1950s and the birth of a breed
As recreational scuba diving took off in the early 1950s, divers needed a watch that could survive depth, stay readable in murky water, and reliably time how long their air would last. The answer was a new kind of tool watch: a heavily sealed case, a screw-down crown, bold luminous hands and markers, and -- the defining feature -- a rotating bezel to track elapsed dive time. The landmark early dive watches of the period came from Swiss houses such as Blancpain and Rolex.
The 200m standard
Depth ratings climbed quickly as the sport grew, and 200 metres (20 ATM) became the recognised benchmark for a serious dive watch -- enough margin for recreational diving with the safety factor real conditions demand. International standards later formalised what a dive watch must do: guaranteed water resistance, a unidirectional bezel that can only reduce timed dive duration if knocked, strong luminescence, and resistance to magnetism and shock. The engineering behind those ratings is covered in our water resistance and ATM guide.
The dive watch today
Most dive watches now never get wet, worn instead for their rugged good looks and genuine everyday toughness -- but the breed's tool-watch honesty remains its appeal. In our range that lineage runs through Tissot's Seastar and Citizen's Promaster, both built with screw-down crowns, sapphire crystals and real water resistance. Browse Tissot and Citizen to see it.
History of the Pilot Watch
Aviation made the wristwatch essential. Early pilots needed to read the time instantly with gloved hands in a freezing, vibrating cockpit -- so the pilot watch grew large, legible and crowned for a fist.
Flying by the clock
In the earliest days of flight, a pilot's watch was a navigation instrument. Working out position and fuel burn meant timing legs of a journey precisely, and a glance had to be enough -- there was no time to study a cluttered dial while flying an open-cockpit aircraft. So the pilot watch evolved a distinct character: an oversized case, a plain matte-black dial with big white numerals, and bold luminous hands for instant legibility against the sky or in darkness.
Large crowns and gloved hands
The most recognisable pilot-watch feature is the oversized, often onion-shaped crown. It exists because early aviators flew in thick gloves at altitude, and a normal small crown was impossible to grip and set with frozen fingers. A big crown could be wound and adjusted without removing a glove. Anti-magnetic protection mattered too, as cockpit instruments and electrics could disturb a watch -- an early driver of the magnetic resistance now common across good mechanical watches. See the broader watch types hub for how the style sits among others.
From cockpit to wardrobe
Like the dive watch, the pilot watch outgrew its job. Civilian aviation and quartz instruments made the wrist watch optional for navigation, but the look -- big, clean, supremely legible -- became a wardrobe classic. Historic aviation names such as the German flieger watches set the template still followed today. The legibility-first philosophy lives on in the clean, high-contrast sports dials across our Tissot and Citizen ranges.
Military Watches
War repeatedly reinvented the watch. The military field watch -- rugged, legible, expendable and standardised -- gave us a design language of pared-back honesty, immortalised by the wartime 'Dirty Dozen'.
The field watch lineage
The military field watch is the plainest and most honest of all watch types, and one of the most influential. Built to a specification rather than a fashion, it strips everything back to what a soldier needs: a clear, matte dial with bold numerals, strong luminous hands, a tough case, a hardy strap and reliable timekeeping in mud, heat and cold. There is no decoration because decoration is weight and glare. That functional purity is exactly why the field-watch look has never dated.
The Dirty Dozen
The most famous chapter is the Dirty Dozen -- the nickname collectors give the watches built to a single strict British military specification near the end of the Second World War. Twelve different Swiss manufacturers each made watches to that one shared standard, including names such as Omega, Longines and IWC. Requiring a black dial, luminous Arabic numerals, a shatterproof crystal, a regulated movement and a railway-track minute scale, the specification produced a dozen near-identical, supremely functional watches now prized by collectors precisely for their tool-watch honesty.
The field watch endures
Military requirements drove much of twentieth-century watch progress -- waterproofing, luminescence, anti-magnetism and shock resistance all sharpened under service demands before reaching civilian wrists. The field watch itself remains a timeless template of clean legibility, and that no-nonsense clarity carries through to the readable, robust everyday watches we stock today.
Evolution of the Chronograph
The chronograph is a watch with a built-in stopwatch -- one of horology's great problem-solvers. From timing horse races to landing on the Moon, its pushers and sub-dials have measured nearly two centuries of human achievement.
Timing the world
A chronograph adds an independent stopwatch to an ordinary watch: a central sweep hand started, stopped and reset by pushers beside the crown, with small sub-dials counting the elapsed minutes and hours. The idea answered a real need -- timing races, scientific experiments, industrial processes and, later, flight and motorsport. It is a complication of pure utility, which is why it became, and remains, the most popular watch complication of all. The mechanics are explained in our complications guide.
Mechanical milestones
The mechanical chronograph was refined over more than a century, from early single-pusher designs to the two-pusher layout that lets you stop and restart timing, and on to the automatic chronograph that arrived at the end of the 1960s -- a genuine engineering race of its era. Add a tachymeter scale on the bezel and the chronograph could read speed over a measured distance, making it the natural companion to motor racing and aviation.
From the wrist to the Moon and back
The chronograph's most famous moment came when one accompanied astronauts to the lunar surface, cementing its tool-watch credentials forever. That role is most associated with the Omega Speedmaster. Today the chronograph thrives in both mechanical and quartz form -- our BOSS and Tommy Hilfiger ranges include plenty of sporty quartz chronographs, while Tissot carries the mechanical tradition. See the complications guide for how to use one.
Frequently asked questions
When was the wristwatch invented?
Wristwatches existed in the nineteenth century but were worn mainly by women. The wristwatch became standard for men during the First World War, when soldiers needed to read the time at a glance with their hands free. By the 1920s the wristwatch had largely replaced the pocket watch for everyday wear.
Why did soldiers start wearing wristwatches?
Coordinated military actions -- timed artillery barrages and synchronised advances -- meant officers had to read the same second instantly, with both hands free. Fumbling for a pocket watch under fire was dangerous, so small watches were strapped to the wrist. The First World War turned the wristwatch from a novelty into essential kit.
What was the quartz crisis?
The quartz crisis was the upheaval of the 1970s, when cheap, highly accurate quartz watches -- following the first quartz wristwatch of 1969 -- collapsed demand for traditional mechanical Swiss watches. Much of the Swiss industry shut down before it recovered by embracing quartz and repositioning mechanical watches as objects of craft.
When was the first quartz watch made?
The first quartz wristwatch went on sale on 25 December 1969, in Japan. By keeping time with a quartz crystal vibrating tens of thousands of times a second, it achieved accuracy of seconds per month -- far beyond any mechanical watch -- and triggered the quartz revolution.
How old is Tissot?
Tissot was founded in 1853 in Le Locle, in the Swiss Jura, by Charles-Felicien Tissot and his son Charles-Emile. That gives the brand over 170 years of continuous Swiss watchmaking heritage, which lives on today in calibres like the 80-hour Powermatic 80.
Why is Swiss watchmaking so famous?
Swiss watchmaking grew in the Jura valleys, where long winters gave farming families time for fine indoor crafts. A concentration of specialists -- each making one part -- built unmatched horological skill. Over time Swiss Made became the world's benchmark for precision and finishing, eventually protected by law.
What made Japanese watchmaking different?
Japanese watchmakers pursued reliability, precision and value through relentless engineering rather than tradition. This produced dependable movements and world-changing inventions -- quartz timekeeping and Citizen's light-powered Eco-Drive -- that made accurate watches affordable for everyone.
When was the dive watch invented?
The modern dive watch emerged in the early 1950s, as recreational scuba diving grew and divers needed a rugged, legible, waterproof timer. Its defining features -- a sealed case, screw-down crown, bold lume and a rotating bezel -- date from that decade, with 200 metres becoming the benchmark depth rating.
Why do pilot watches have large crowns?
Early aviators flew in open, freezing cockpits wearing thick gloves, and a normal small crown was impossible to grip and set. A large, often onion-shaped crown could be wound and adjusted without removing a glove -- which is why the oversized crown became a signature of the pilot watch.
What is a field watch?
A field watch is a military-style watch built for function over decoration: a clear matte dial with bold numerals, strong luminous hands, a tough case and reliable timekeeping. The pared-back, supremely legible design has never dated and remains one of the most influential watch styles.
What were the Dirty Dozen watches?
The Dirty Dozen is the collectors' nickname for watches made by twelve different Swiss manufacturers to a single strict British military specification near the end of the Second World War. The shared standard required a black dial, luminous numerals, a shatterproof crystal and a regulated movement.
What is a chronograph and where did it come from?
A chronograph is a watch with a built-in stopwatch, operated by pushers beside the crown, with sub-dials counting elapsed time. It was created to time races, experiments and industrial processes, and grew into the most popular watch complication -- later famous in motorsport and aviation.
What is the difference between a chronograph and a chronometer?
A chronograph is a function -- a built-in stopwatch with extra pushers and sub-dials. A chronometer is a measure of accuracy -- a movement officially certified to keep very precise time. The two words are constantly confused, but a watch can be one, both or neither.
How does the automatic watch wind itself?
An automatic watch has a rotor -- a semicircular weight that pivots on the back of the movement and swings as your wrist moves. That motion is geared back into the mainspring, keeping the watch wound as long as you wear it. The full-rotor design refined through the twentieth century is still used today.
How did the quartz revolution affect mechanical watches?
Quartz nearly ended mechanical watchmaking in the 1970s by being far more accurate and far cheaper. The industry survived by repositioning mechanical watches as objects of craft, heritage and emotion rather than mere timekeepers -- which is why a Tissot automatic is valued as much for its tradition as its accuracy.
Are mechanical watches still made today?
Yes. Although quartz is more accurate and affordable, mechanical and automatic watches thrive as heirlooms of craft -- serviceable machines handed down across generations. Tissot's Powermatic 80 automatic is a modern example of this centuries-old Swiss tradition, with an 80-hour power reserve.
Which watch brands does OD's stock with real heritage?
Among our watch brands, Tissot carries deep Swiss heritage -- founded in 1853 in Le Locle -- while Citizen represents the Japanese tradition of innovation, including the invention of light-powered Eco-Drive. Both continue lineages traced throughout this history hub.