Baume et Mercier

Baume & Mercier
	File:Baume et Mercier logo.svg
Company type	Subsidiary of Richemont
Industry	Watchmaking, Jewellery
Founded	1830
Headquarters	Geneva, Switzerland
Key people	William Baume & Paul Mercier (Founders); Geoffroy Lefebvre (CEO)
Products	Watches, Jewellery
Website	www.baume-et-mercier.com

Baume & Mercier is a swiss watchmaking house founded in 1830, affiliated to the Richemont group.

History

Since its foundation in 1830 in the Swiss Jura, Baume & Mercier has been putting technical and aesthetic innovation at the heart of its creations. In keeping with its motto, “Accept only perfection; only manufacture watches of the highest quality” and based on 189 years of heritage, the Maison is a Swiss watchmaking pioneer. Its international renown is forged on the development of high-performance contemporary watches that make ideal daily companions.

The Maison Baume & Mercier has always had a special place in women’s hearts. It all began in 1869 when Louis-Victor Baume gave his daughter Mélina a gold fob watch decorated with floral motifs. This was a very unusual and forward-thinking gift for those times, when women’s watches were rare and did not particularly differ from those designed for men

Innovations

In a perpetual pursuit of technical innovation, the Maison became the first watchmaker to introduce the Lépine calibre to the Jura in 1840, revolutionising watch reliability and sturdiness. The use of this calibre, which required innovative changes in work methods, contributed to the Maison’s success.

During the second half of the 19th century, Baume & Mercier acquired solid international renown. The Maison is reputed for its chronographs and grand complications, and in particular its minute repeaters, perpetual calendars and tourbillons. Its time-measuring instruments have earned it a number of awards and medals. Indeed, the Maison received the Gold medal at the Melbourne International Exhibition in 1880 and that of London in 1885, and again at that of Chicago in 1893. In 1892, the Maison beat all records for precision at the chronometry competition of the Kew Observatory in England with a pocket stopwatch featuring a keyless winding mechanism and a tourbillon-regulated calibre. That was a long-lasting record since it remained the most precise watch in the world for 10 years.

In the 1920s and 1930s, Baume & Mercier proposed ultra-thin watches among the slimmest of the time. Then, in 1965, the Maison developed an ultra-thin self-winding movement equipped with an off-centre oscillating weight, the "Roto Planétaire": for a self-winding watch with a calendar, it was the slimmest of its time.

In the early 20th century, fob watches began to make way for wristwatches, while jewellers began creating watches for women that resembled pieces of jewellery. The Maison Baume & Mercier, which has always been at the forefront of trends, brought out smaller wristwatches and more unusual designs, such as the iconic “baignoire” or oval shape.

In the mid-1940s, women’s watches became slimmer, and Baume & Mercier unveiled the Marquise, a timepiece with a slender rectangular case mounted on a cuff bracelet. The Marquise remained one of the watchmaker’s best-sellers until the early 1960s.

In 1973, Baume & Mercier unveiled the Riviera model, a watch with a twelve-sided bezel that illustrated the twelve hours of the day and of the night. The realization of the Riviera was a real technical challenge due to the means of production at that time.

With the tuning fork watch “Tronosonic”, Baume & Mercier confirmed its foothold in modernity and resisted the wave of quartz watches, followed by that of digital watches.

With the “Avant-Garde” watch, released in 1986, Baume & Mercier became one of the very few brands to use tungsten carbide for its watch cases and straps, since the material is very difficult to shape. On the other hand, the Maison was the only brand to integrate elements in 18-carat gold into its straps, an innovation at the time.

Baume & Mercier revisits the cuff watch with the reinvention of the Catwalk model, originally launched in 1997. This watch has been designed for women who are looking for a more elaborate and contemporary style.

In 2018, in a combination of mechanical innovation and watchmaking heritage, Baume & Mercier presented the Clifton Baumatic collection, once again asserting the brand’s expertise in combining style with cutting-edge technology.

The Baumatic Calibre

The self-winding Baumatic movement ensures optimal reliability. In addition to 120 hours (5 days) of autonomy, Clifton Baumatic watches offer great chronometric precision (–4/+6 seconds per day for the COSC-certified models). They resist to the main magnetic fields of daily life. These models only require maintenance service once every seven years rather than three to five years recommended for a traditional watch. Any high watchmaking aficionado will appreciate these remarkable achievements.