One of the Best Vintage Watch Brands You’ve Never Heard of Is Back

The history of mechanical watchmaking is littered with once-great brands that sadly no longer exist.

With the widespread adaptation of cheap and accurate battery-powered quartz movements in the 1970s, the bulk of the traditional watchmaking industry, concentrated mainly in Switzerland, couldn’t keep up. Now known as the Quartz Crisis, this industry-altering event led to the demise of countless brands.

One such brand with which you may not be familiar is Favre Leuba. But it’s time you became familiar, because this little-known brand is back in a big way.

The long history of a vintage sleeper

Favre Leuba

Favre Leuba is one of the oldest Swiss watch brands, with a history dating all the way back to 1737. Its history has many twists and turns, including ownership of Bovet in the 1800s and being the first Swiss watch to launch in India later in the 19th century. (The brand remains strongly associated with the subcontinent.)

But it’s the brand’s 1960s tool watches, like the Bathy, the first mechanical dive watch with a depth gauge, and the Bivouac, the first watch with an aneroid barometer, that have made Favre Leuba a favorite among some vintage collectors.

Favre Leuba

Like Universal Genève, Favre Leuba never actually completely died during the Quartz Crisis. Instead, the company changed hands numerous times — it was even a sister company to JLC for a brief period — and went through long periods of inactivity and uninspired production, most recently under the ownership of India’s Titan Group.

The New Favre Leuba

Last year, the brand was acquired by Ethos, the largest luxury watch retailer in India, and it appointed Patrik Hoffman, former CEO of Ulysse Nardin, as its new CEO. This move showed a seriousness about reviving the brand that had been lacking in recent decades, and today we’re seeing the result of that effort with a full brand relaunch at Geneva Watch Days.

Favre Leuba has debuted a whopping 22 new references across three distinct collections at the show, with the offerings straddling the line between honoring the brand’s past and looking toward its future.

First up is the rebirth of the Chief collection, originally a diverse line of tool watches from the mid-century that’s been reimagined as a modernized “urban” ’70s-inspired luxury sports watch available in both three-hand and chronograph variations.

Favre Leuba

Next is the reborn Deep Blue collection, which was arguably Favre Leuba’s most popular dive watch following its introduction in 1964. The new Deep Blue comes in two versions.

The Deep Blue Renaissance is a Deep Blue in name only, as it’s a thoroughly modern dive watch with a ceramic bezel insert, a sapphire caseback and a 40mm case size.

Favre Leuba

The Deep Blue Revival, by contrast, is a faithful reproduction of the 1964 model with the same design, a vintage-style bracelet and a smaller 39mm case, though its specs have naturally been brought up to contemporary mechanical watch standards.

Favre Leuba

Finally, there’s my personal favorite of the new Favre Leuba collections, the Sea Sky. There’s just one model, the Sea Sky Revival, which is a modern recreation of a 1970s pilot’s chronograph from the brand.

Available in three colorways — brown, black and blue, reverse pandas all — the chronograph is extremely good-looking with clear mid-century inspiration and is highly functional, as well, with a rotating countdown bezel and both tachymeter and telemeter scales on the dial.

Favre Leuba

Who are these watches for?

The new Favre Leuba appears to be aiming toward the mid-level luxury watch market with its pricing and movements.

All of the watches are Swiss-made and use high-end materials like sapphire crystals and rhodium-plated hands and indices. They’re also all powered by automatic movements from La Joux-Perret that are fully decorated with custom gold-plated rotors.

Prices range from $2,450 to $2,650 for the three-handers and $4,350 to $4,800 for the chronographs. This puts the brand firmly in competition with Longines, which, in my opinion, is the brand to beat in this price bracket.

The future of Favre Leuba is pretty ambitious. Within the next three years, the brand aims to produce thousands of watches annually, and a new collection of complicated watches is already in development.

Favre Leuba

Favre Leuba Sea Sky Chronograph

Specs

Case Size	40mm
Movement	La Joux-Perret Cal. LJP 112 automatic chronograph
Water Resistance	100m

• $4,350 at Favre Leuba

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