TAG Heuer
TAG Heuer is a Swiss watch manufacturer, and part of the leading luxury goods company LVMH (Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy S.A).
TAG Heuer focuses primarily on chronographs, with some less expensive models in each serie. Most watches has an automatic (self-winding) movements, and most are water resistant. Many of the watches are so called skeleton watches, in which the backside of the case is made of glas, enabling viewers to see the clockwork.
Tag Heuer was founded in 1860 by Edouard Heuer. In 1869, he patented the first crown-winding mechanism for pocket watches, and in 1889, the company won a silver medal in the Universal Exhibition in Paris, for its collection of pocket chronographs.
In 1914, Ed Heuer introduced his first wrist chronograph. In 1916, he introduced the "Micrograph", the first stopwatch with accuracy of one 100th of a second. In the early 1950's, Tag Heuer produced watches for the American retailer Abercrombie & Fitch. For them Heuer developed unique chronographs "Seafarer" and "Auto-graph". The Seafarer was able to show the high and low tides and even phases of the moon. In the late 1960's, Heuer introduced its own version of the watch, knows as the Mareographe. The Auto-graph was designed to compute the speed of a car.
In 1958, Heuer launched a new series of watches designed to be mounted on the dashboard of a car, boat or airplane. During this period until the 1970's, Heuers watches were extremely popular among racing drivers.
Carrera chronograph, designed in 1963 by Jack Heuer, became a design icon, known for its clean lines. Most of the Heuer watches from this period included movements by Valjoux. In 1960, the company acquired the Leonidas brand, and in 1969 Heuer entered in to a partnership with the watch manufacturers Breitling and Hamilton. Together they introduced the first automatic chronographs. Heuers first three were called Autavia, Carrera and Monaco.
In 1962, Heuer became the first Swiss watch producer in space, when John Glenn was wearing one while piloting the spacecraft Mercury 6 on the first US manned space flight to orbit the earth.
In the early 1980's, the company launched a series of watches powered by the Lemania 5100 movement. This series of chronographs is considered to be very powerful and robust.
TAG Heuer was founded in 1985, when TAG (Techniques d'Avant Garde) acquired Heuer. Together they modernized the production, and became one of the biggest names among Swiss watch manufacturers. In 1999, TAG Heuer accepted a bid from LVMH (Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy S.A) giving them 51 percent of the company stocks.
In the recent years, TAG heuer has introduced models such Monaco V4, Carrera 360 (the first mechanical wrist chronograph to measure and display time to 1/100th of a second) and Monaco 69 (with both a digital chronograph accurate to a millisecond and a traditional mechanical movement. The dial has a hinged mechanism which allows the user to choose between the digital and the mechanical dials.)
In 2007, TAG Heuer won the iF product design award for the Monaco Calibre 360 LS Concept Cronograph, by the International Forum Design. The watch was chosen among more than 2,200 watches from 35 different countries. Even in 2006 TAG Heuer won this award, with a watch designed especially for golf players. This watch was developed with Tiger Woods.
TAG Heuer has several celebrities as ambassadors for their label, such as Kimi Räikkönen, Maria Sharapova, Uma Thurman, Brad Pitt and Steve McQueen.
