THE INNOVATOR: GASTON BREITLING AND THE MODERN CHRONOGRAPH’S ORIGINS

Alas, there also came a time to slow down, and Leon Breitling died in 1914 at the young age of 54. His life was short, but his legacy was considerable. Leon had succeeded in building a strong foundation for the Breitling brand. Much of what would be launched in the next few years was already technically complete and ready for production by the time he died.

While it normally took years and many prototypes to develop and test a chronograph movement, it took Leon’s son, Gaston, less than a year after he took over the company to introduce a Breitling chronograph that changed everything, and would define how wrist chronographs would function over the next several decades.

This new wrist chronograph, presented in the February 1915 edition of the Fédération Horlogère Suisse, had an independent pushpiece at two o’clock that could be used to start, stop and reset the chronograph. This was revolutionary, since wrist chronographs at the time were really just pocket watches attached to wristlets or with soldered wire lugs, and still activated by pressing the crown at 12 o’clock. Neither their functionality nor their size were ideal, and operating the crown with one hand was cumbersome.

Gaston widely advertised his innovation, which he described as “most practical and advantageous,” and he moved it quickly into mass production.

Until this time, wristwatches had been almost exclusively worn by women. Men had waistcoats with pockets where they could store their handheld watch. But Gaston had taken over the company just before World War I. His wrist-worn chronograph with the independent pushpiece proved a well-timed success as, on the battlefield, men no longer had the luxury of being able to dip in and out of their pockets.

The innovation helped carry Breitling through the difficult years ahead, but it did not make the company completely immune to external factors. A passage in Breitling’s 1946 catalog entitled “A Bit of Our History” describes the situation: “Leon

Breitling died on August 11th, 1914. He left behind him a prosperous factory, which his son Gaston took over. The World War, which had just broken out, setting Europe on fire, closed down many of the markets which had hitherto been available, and this caused difficulties for Gaston Breitling.” This is probably putting it rather mildly, since World War I had pushed all of Europe into massive economic turmoil. Even after the war, the global economy continued to decline.

Gaston’s ambition to expand the company turned into a battle for survival as he struggled through those troubled years. It was not an easy task, as the entire Swiss watch industry was in a tailspin and

OPPOSITE:

1915 advertisement for Breitling’s monopusher chronograph

LEFT:

Ca. 1920, Breitling, 38 mm case: 18k gold, hands: Leaf (feuille)

ABOVE RIGHT:

Monopusher “1915” with sterile dial, ca. 1915, Breitling, 42.8 mm case: silver, hands: Spade (poire) it would take well into the 1920s for the economy to reawaken.

Still, Gaston persevered. The company’s 1946 catalog recounts, “Having traveled a lot and worked abroad and thanks to his wide knowledge of the trade and the world markets, he was able to surmount the crisis and develop his father’s business.”

Along with dwindling output, there remained some ambivalence about the utility of the wristwatch: was it meant to be ornamental, or was it a tool? Wristwatch design was in flux, and as Gaston chased the market, he explored new uses for his firm’s specialty. In one trademark register, there is a rather surprising product that shows his ingenuity in trying to appeal to different sectors. In February 1923, Gaston registered a product called “Unedeu” (a derivation of “one, two” in French).

It took me some time to find out what it actually was: a three-digit counter on a pocket watch designed for priests so they could count the number of parishioners attending mass without being too obvious about it. It was really a rather extraordi- nary idea, but it apparently wasn’t hugely successful, because a surviving example of the Breitling Unedeu priest’s chronograph has never emerged.

Another 1946 catalog entry describes Gaston’s ongoing determination to keep the wrist chronograph alive: “According to the family tradition of imagination and invention, Gaston Breitling kept up this specialization of the manufacturing of complicated watches. If Leon Breitling had opened the way, Gaston enlarged and prolonged it.” His dedication would lead to another foundational innovation, one he filed a patent for in 1923: the Brevet 105532, a chronograph that offered an independent start and pause pusher and an additional independent reset activator in one of the crown positions. It was the first patented chronograph that offered start, stop, pause, restart, stop with a separate reset-to-zero actuator, and it was a defining development for Breitling.

OPPOSITE, LEFT TO RIGHT: Monopusher “1915” with sterile dial, ca. 1919, Breitling, 39 mm case: silver, hands: leaf (feuille)

A page from the 1946 Breitling catalog, entitled “Our History”

THIS PAGE, LEFT TO RIGHT 1923 registration for the Unedeu priest’s chronograph

1923 patent 105532 for the basic concept behind the dual pusher