Longines

The story of Longines brand began in 1832 when Auguste Agassiz moved to Saint-Imier, a small town and started a watchmaker’s workshop there. In 1866, Ernest Francillon, Agassiz´s nephew, acquired two pieces of land at the outskirts of Saint-Imier, in a place locally called Les Longines (i.e.. „long narrow fields“), and built up the first factory in the place.

Longines brand was registered on 19 July 1880 and its logo – flying hourglass – on 27 May 1889.

In 1885 Longines was awarded Grand Prix for the first time at an international exhibition in Antwerp, which was followed by many others. No other watchmaker’s manufactory managed to beat its record so far – 10 Grand Prizes and 28 Gold Medals.

The year of 1927 is also worth mentioning. Charles A. Lindbergh accomplished the first non-stop flight over the Atlantic from New York to Paris. This memorable event was monitored and measured by a Longines watch.
Four years later, Ch. A. Lindbergh made a design to which Longines made an air watch . The replica of the watch is displayed by Longines even today, in its Heritage Collection under the name of The Lindbergh Hour Angle Watch.

Longines brand is tightly joined with sports. Since 1952 Longines has been the official time keeper of the summer and winter Olympic games and „the flying hourglass “ may be seen also on occasion of other prestigious sports events, e.g. in gymnastics, horseracing or down hill skiing.

On 19 February 2001, Longines celebrated the thirty-millionth watch it had made.

Today, the range of Longines watches is really broad and everybody who will go through the collection is sure to find a model to fit him/her - whether he/she is a lover of elegant, trendy, traditional mechanical or sports watches.

After all, any Longines watch is elegant. Because – as the corporate logo reads - Elegance is an attitude.

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