Tissot: The Swiss Brand That Stayed Reachable

Charles-Félicien Tissot and his son Charles-Émile started making watches in Le Locle in 1853, in a region that had been assembling movements in farmhouses through the winters for generations.

Their first significant move was commercial rather than technical. Charles-Émile travelled to Russia and built a market there, and for decades Tissot pocket watches were a fixture among the Russian nobility. That ended abruptly with the revolution in 1917, and the company had to rebuild around a different world.

What followed is the part that matters. Tissot spent the twentieth century making genuine technical contributions while refusing to price itself out of reach. The first mass-produced anti-magnetic wristwatch in 1930. The Navigator, a watch showing 24 time zones, in 1953. The Astrolon in 1971, the first watch with a movement made largely of plastic, which sounds like a gimmick and was actually a serious attempt at reducing cost without abandoning mechanics.

In 1983 Tissot became part of the Swatch Group, which is why it now has access to movements like the Powermatic 80 with its eighty-hour reserve.

Why it matters here

Almost every Swiss house that started where Tissot started has since moved upmarket, chasing margin. Tissot did not. It remains one of very few genuinely Swiss-made brands that a professional in Accra can reasonably buy, and that is a deliberate position rather than an accident.

The piece to know: the PRX. Originally released in 1978 as an integrated-bracelet sports watch, revived in 2021, and now the model we are asked for more than any other.