Since 1853, Thommen’s watch factory in Switzerland has been developing watches – reliable and solid timepieces that deliver what they promise, appreciated by men and women who have both feet on the ground and who take the highest responsibility for themselves and others – in aviation, sports, the military and mountaineering, among other fields. Now that the Thommen family has taken back responsibility and leadership of the company, we are developing the next generation of REVUE THOMMEN watches. It will make the values and DNA of our 170-year company tradition visible. Your thoughts and impressions with a REVUE THOMMEN on your wrist are important to us. We share and discuss here our thoughts in the development and creation of the next THOMMEN watch generation. We are eager to hear your ideas.
What does the 168-year history of THOMMEN’s watch factory stand for today? What is the entrepreneurial DNA of this watch factory that was developed by my great-great-grandfather Gedeon Thommen? These are the central questions I ask myself as a representative of the fourth Thommen generation. With GT THOMMEN Watch AG, the company returned to family ownership. Until 2014, the management and brand leadership of REVUE THOMMEN had been delegated to a licensee. Now that I, as the family representative, have recently taken over the operational management of this watch brand with such a long tradition, the family takes responsibility again for the values and thus for the DNA of THOMMEN watches. Important core values of THOMMEN Watches have remained intact during this time: Swiss Made and the quality of the Swiss movements used.
For the conception of the next generation of THOMMEN watches, we asked ourselves important questions within the family circle: What values does the long history of our company stand for? What distinguished the watches developed by Gedeon Thommen and his successors? What made THOMMEN’s watch factory a leader on the world market in the last century?
We have found several answers. One important one: technical innovations and the will to make affordable precise timepieces with a long life span available to a broad section of the population shaped the founding years. Gedeon Thommen and his watchmakers developed patents and new manufacturing methods and later also the necessary machines to produce precise watches even in large quantities. Watches gave the individual independence in the era of democratisation and structured everyday life during industrialisation.
Reliability and robustness were the order of the day Gedeon Thommen and his successors did not think much of watches as fashion accessories or to represent social status. A watch was a watch was a watch! Important features of THOMMEN’s DNA are: Reliability and robustness. I am quite convinced that you, as a Revue Thommen wearer, see it that way too. What values do you associate with our corporate tradition? Why do you wear a REVUE THOMMEN?
