Rotary Swiss Heritage

Welcome, come and join us on a journey through the years of Rotary’s legacy and Swiss heritage, we are going to start right at the very beginning where Rotarys very first offices were in Switzerland as we travel on a fascinating expedition through the archives of some of the brands most innovative designs, stopping off to delve into the Swiss brands changes in fashion trends and groundbreaking technology. Rotary is one of our most popular brands and its easy to see why, the Swiss brand is at the forefront of Swiss timepieces year on year but what is the brands true heritage? Read on to find out more…

1895
The year was 1895 and it was this year that Moise Dreyfuss decided he was going to open up his very own factory in the beautiful Swiss town of La Chaux de Fonds. Now for those of us who know Switzerland during the 1850s-1900s you will know that during this time there was an absolutely huge demand for good value, professional quality timepieces and other merchandise and Moise used this along with his intellect to ensure that his business grew quickly and steadily year on year. This is the year that the Rotary brand we know and love today, was born.

1920s
Now we take a little fast forward to twelve years later where the company had grown so much that Georges and Sylvain Dreyfuss decided it was time to open an office in Britain to import the family watches. This was a huge step for the brand who had never had a office in any other country than Switzerland. From here the company grew more and more until one day in 1925 they introduced the now famous Rotary logo, the ‘winged wheel’ which you can see pictured above. You see this on every watch Rotary now manufacture. (It’s even on their pens!)

1934
It was in this year that Rotary launched its first shockproof watch which was a huge thing back then and very popular due to the heavy amounts of manual labour jobs that involved a lot of movement in which people knocked their watches. They did this using innovative technology which didn’t go unnoticed by other competitor brands not only in Switzerland but all around the world.

1940
As everybody knows that in late 1939 that the famous invasion of Blitzkreig invasion of Poland happened which was when Britain declared war on Nazi Germany due to the devastation of Polish forces. With this huge call to arms was a huge call in demand for watches which is when the British military appointed Rotary an official supplier to the British Army. You might be thinking why didn’t Britain ask its own watch companies to make these watches? Unfortunately it wasn’t that simple, with all of their watch companies manufacturing and developing naval and aviation instruments they had to turn to the neutral Swiss companies to ask for aid.

1940s
During the wartime Rotary decided to product a wartime ad campaign which featured the companies non-magnetic watches which were perfect for use during expeditions advertising as “High Performance” and “For accuracy it must be a Rotary”. There isn’t any official records that we could get hold of to find out if this actually saw a boost in sales so we aren’t able to know if this campaign was successful.

1942
In 1942 watches were coming on in leaps an bounds with so many new brands and models moving into a whole host of markets. This year was significant to Rotary as it is when the brand launched its first automatic watch powered by the movement of the wearer’s wrist. This was a watchmaking innovation and the brand was highly commended for their contributions to watch making. For the time the idea of completely powering your watch using only the movement of your own wrist seemed so futuristic.

1956
Rotary needed something to make them stand out from their competitors. Watch businesses seemed to be popping up all over the place and this only made things harder for the Swiss brand. The watch making business was and still is an unforgiving market so Rotary had to be careful where they chose to spend any profits and budgets so as to build their business not send it on a downward spiral. This is when Rotary decided to mix things up and produce a number of popular watch brochures called “Accuracy and distinction at a reasonable price”.

1958
Rotary produced seasonal timepieces to mark and celebrate milestones throughout the company’s history and the Jubilee year was no exception with a timepiece that proved extremely popular within the timepiece market. It was marketing decisions like these that set the brand apart from others who hoped that just selling alone would prevail.

1960’s
During the 1960’s job oppourtunites were fairly hard to obtain however to counter this Rotary decided to open up its very own apprentice schemes which created hundreds of jobs providing dedicated staff with the skills and training to enjoy long career with the company plus room for internal development for those willing to work hard enough.

1973
The 1970’s brought with it the ‘Quartz Crisis’ which crippled almost all of the Swiss watchmaking market, forcing hundreds of companies to shut their doors. The quartz crisis which is ironically also known as the quartz revolution is a phrase that is used by many in the watchmaking industry to reference back to the economic crisis that were all caused by the invention of the Quartz battery watch. It was this technology which unfortunately largely replaced mechanical watches. Rotary wasn’t going to take this sitting down so fought back with a new launch of its first quartz watch using new electronic oscillator technology.

1976
In 1976 Rotary was widely known as the sponsor for all of the British Racing Motors in the Formula1. For anyone who isn’t familiar with the Forumla1 it is the highest class of single-seat auto racing and is sanctioned by the FIA. The FIA Formula One World Championship has been the best of the best of racing since that memorable first season in 1950, although other Formula One races were regularly held until 1983. Just in case you ever wandered what the word “formula” was for in the name, it actually refers to a set of rules, to which all participants’ cars must conform. In a Forumla1 season there is a series of races, known as Grands Prix, held worldwide on purpose-built F1 circuits and public roads.

1978
During the late 1970’s the brands new contemporary and adventurous styles allowed Rotary to support various sporting events in the UK and Switzerland plus teams which toured and ventured around the world to compete. This allowed the brand to get their name out worldwide improving brand awareness.

1979
Every year Rotary Chairman Teddy Dreyfuss writes up a report that is handed to all of his companies and staff. This helps the brand to recognise where it did well and where it needs to improve. This was commended as it continues to improve Rotary’s legendary support to the jewellery trade with his annual statements and forward thinking.

1987
Robert Dreyfuss joined the company, the fourth generation of a fully independent family company.

2000
In May 2000 Rotary took a huge step as it moved its head office to a new premises in a very desirable Regent Street location in London. If you think back to all those years ago when the brand came over to the UK and it was a little store and office to the present day you can see the impress advancements that the brand has taken to be the phenomenon it is today.

2001
Just one year after Rotary head office in the UK moved to their upmarket new location in London the brand decided it was time for the Switzerland office to also move to a new location. This time the location of choice was the prestigious town of Neuchatel in Switzerland.

2002
September 2002 was a big year for Rotary as it was the year that the brand won a prestigious award at the infamous UK Jewellery Awards 2002. Which coincidentally at the time of writing this are just about to close voting for this years award (2017). Rotary wont the coveted “supplier of the year” award which is pictured above. They wont this award as their brand sold timepieces in a very impressive 35 countries worldwide.

2003
Building on their success year on year was a key focus of Rotary and this was proven in July 2003 when Rotary won the “Supplier of the Year” Award for the second consecutive year. This is an extremely strong feat for any brand and Rotary definitely deserved it.

2005
Dolphin Standard was announced in 2005 and was a swimming and diving standard that the brand introduced. It meant that any watch which had this stamp was waterproof to a swimming and diving standard with their famous quote “enabling you to swim and dive all day” with you watch. Rotary still use this very same standard today with all their watches and we have customers who call up asking about the Dolphin standard watches every single day.

2006
In 2006 the Rotary brand took watch making to a new level when it launched the patented Rotary Round Revelation™. This was such an innovative invention that it allowed Rotary to achieve Superbrands status. It was in essence a double faced watch that you could click out and switch around without worrying about dropping the watch. It was so easy and convenient it allowed you to completely mix up the style of your timepiece with just a flick.

2007
Rotary actually managed to achieve Superbrands status for the second year running which was all thanks to a new collection they introduced called the “Rotary Rocks” collection. These dazzling timepieces were a combination of innovative watchmaking technology and shiny crystal and diamond sets often including mother of pearl on the dial too for added finesse.

2008
Rotary launched its fully automatic “editions” range in 2008 which featured a number of model most of which were skeleton dial watches with a bronze / rose gold style case. These design-led Editions range were perfect for any style-conscious men or women. They sold out very quickly and due to their low quantity they are still popular now as we have a number of enquiries a month regarding them however unfortunately all of our “editions” collection watches have sold out.

2009
Rotary introduces two significant initiatives – Waterproof Standard and Lifetime Guarantee, and launches two additional brands, Rotary Aquaspeed and Rotary Les Originales.

2015
Rotary sponsor Chelsea FC as they win the 2014/15 Barclays Premier League under Jose Mourinho.

Thank you for coming on this journey through the Swiss heritage of Rotary Watches and I hope this has been both enjoyable and informative for you. Remember if you have any questions you can email us info@firstclasswatches.co.uk or alternatively you can call us on 01926 298 499