As with most Swiss watch companies founded in that era, Tissot began life as a comptoir, an assembler of parts procured from individual makers in the region. In that first year, the company delivered between 1100 and 1200 watches to the region around Le Locle.
Tissot introduced the first mass-produced pocket watch as well as the first pocket watch with two time zones in 1853 and the first anti-magnetic watch in 1929–30. The Tissot company was also the first to make watches out of plastic, stone, mother of pearl and wood.
By 1858, the younger Tissot, Charles-Émile, was off to Russia, and with the blessing of the Czar, was selling Tissot brand pocket watches all across the Empire. Until the beginning of the October Revolution in 1917, the Russian Empire was Tissot's biggest market, where Tissot timepieces made it as far as the Tsar's court.
With the introduction of electrical motors in the early 1900s the brand was able to gradually adopt mechanical production. From the dawn of the 1910s, Tissot sold its first wristwatches for women, in the form of gold and platinum pieces set with diamonds.
Since 1853, the company has often adapted and reimagined their classic collections to come up with new, innovative watch concepts.
Tissot Watch
