Tissot merged with Omega in 1930 and both brands now make luxury watches under the larger Swatch group. Tissot and Omega have been part of the Swatch group since 1983. While Tissot is best known for its complex and surprisingly affordable luxury watches, it should not be excluded from any historical discussion of watches and the luxury watch industry.
As a result of this prior mentality towards timepieces, the vast majority of wristwatches designs that existed prior to the mid-1950s have a significantly more dress-oriented aesthetic to them. This trend makes perfect sense because if you were only going to own one watch, it had better be something that you could also wear on formal occasions, where rules for attire were generally more strict. His trend continued into the 1970s, when many of the region’s high quality replica watches had a delicate and elegant aesthetic, no matter what characteristics or complexity they might have.
The dial of the Tissot Chronograph refs. 808A is another expression of this tension between dress and tool-like aesthetics. Produced by Singer, the dial of this vintage Tissot is a nice two-toned silver color, featuring oversized chronograph registers that are recessed for the surface and have a circular guilloché pattern engraved in them.
Today, Tissot produces a wide assortment of luxury watches ranging from classically-styled, mechanical dress pieces, to technologically-advanced sports watches with quartz movements and touch sensitive sapphire crystals. However, while Tissot embraces modern trends and technologies in its extremely diverse portfolio, it still adheres to consistent core values, and the brand’s rich heritage can be seen in the modern watches it produces today.
While Tissot now offers a large number of collections specifically consisting of sport and tool watches, many contemporary models feature traits that call back to the early days of the brand’s design language. Just like the vintage Tissot Chronograph refs. 808A, certain watches within Tissot’s Couturier and Bridgeport collections still feature tachymeter scales printed along the periphery of their dials, despite otherwise following a classic and more dress-oriented aesthetic.
One of the great things about the Swatch Group today is that it is home to many replica watch brands, each with its own place. All these different brands remain separate entities, but they all benefit from the collective resources of one of the world’s largest watch industry players.
