Editor’s Note
As we approach the 100th anniversary of Art Deco in 2025, this article explores its profound and lasting impact on Swiss watchmaking. The movement did more than influence aesthetics; it catalyzed a fundamental shift from the pocket watch to the wristwatch, a revolution that began in Geneva. Today, brands like Cartier and Jaeger-LeCoultre continue to draw inspiration from this iconic era, proving that the spirit of the 1920s remains a powerful force in contemporary design.
2025 marks the 100th anniversary of Art Deco. For Swiss watchmaking, this date is more than just an anniversary; it signifies a revolution. The watch emerged from the pocket to be fastened to the wrist. This changed everything, and it all began in Geneva.
Cartier was a hit this spring with its new Tank à Guichets, which returned like Proust’s madeleines from the Roaring Twenties. At Watches and Wonders, Jaeger-LeCoultre bet everything on its Reverso, its bestseller from the interwar period. In 2023, Rolex amazed everyone with the Perpetual 1908, a new collection that reproduces, almost line for line, a piece from 1931. All these watches – and so many others – share a common root: Art Deco. Simplicity of lines, geometric reduction, graphic contrasts. The style is easily recognizable, it dominated the industry until the 1950s and gave its codes to the classic watch. Its name was defined retrospectively, in reference to an event that became a witness to an era: the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts, held in Paris exactly a century ago, from April to November 1925.
Art Deco and watchmaking is a true, enduring love story that began in Geneva. The GemGenève jewelry fair subtly lifted a corner of the veil on this story in early May at Palexpo, by gathering nearly 200 period objects. It reveals a major upheaval in the timekeeping industry. For during those Roaring Twenties, as the world modernized between two crises, the Swiss watchmaking sector underwent its great transformation. While industrial activity concentrated in the Jura Arc, Geneva established itself as the economic capital and gave the watch its new face. A creative and luxurious identity, centered on crafts from jewelry – which have survived and are today called “métiers d’art.”