What Blancpain is known for
Founded by Jehan-Jacques Blancpain in Villeret in 1735 and widely cited as the oldest registered watch brand still in existence, Blancpain builds its own movements at manufacture sites in Le Brassus and Le Sentier in the Vallée de Joux. Its Fifty Fathoms dive watch anchors a haute horlogerie catalogue produced under Swatch Group ownership.
Blancpain's founding date — 1735, Jehan-Jacques Blancpain's workshop in Villeret — makes it the oldest registered watch brand in existence, and its modern motto weaponizes the heritage: "Since 1735 there has never been a quartz Blancpain. And there never will be." The line was Jean-Claude Biver's, who with Jacques Piguet bought the dormant name in the early 1980s and rebuilt it as mechanical watchmaking's flag during quartz's darkest decade.
The Fifty Fathoms is the crown piece: created in 1953 for French combat divers — rotating bezel, black dial, water-resistance standards it essentially invented — it predates every rival dive icon and anchors the catalogue's modern identity, ocean-conservation program included.
At Le Brassus and Le Sentier the manufacture builds everything from the Villeret line's grand-feu enamel classicism to carrousels and minute repeaters; the Ladybird continues one of the smallest round movements ever made. Under Swatch Group, Blancpain remains the argument stated in 1735 and never withdrawn: the mechanical watch, perfected slowly, forever.
Best for — Fifty Fathoms dive watches and in-house haute horlogerie
Made in Switzerland
Where next
- Girard-Perregaux — Switzerland
- Vacheron Constantin — Geneva
- Sandrouni — Armenian Ceramics — Jerusalem
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