Please click on an image below 

Girard-Perregaux was the result of the marriage between Constant Girard and Marie Perregaux in 1854, they joined together two watchmaking families in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland. They established the brand Girard-Perregaux together in 1856.

The brand had international commercial success that both Constant and Marie would have witnessed before their respective deaths 1903 & 1912.

By 1906 Girard-Perregaux underwent a considerable transformation. The brand acquired “la maison Jean-François Bautte”, a very successful watch brand in its own right. Amalgamating both company workshops, styles and techniques meant Girard-Perregaux evolved, giving the brand a horological history beyond its own existence to the origins of J.F.Bautte 1791.

The origins of The Three Bridges

In 1867 Constant Girard-Perregaux redesigned the bridges for a pocketwatch Tourbillon in an arrow-shaped form arranged in parallel. Thereby aligning the barrel, gear train and Tourbillon along the same axis, giving birth to the Tourbillon with Three Bridges. By doing this, he transformed the bridges from a purely technical invisible element, into a visible integral part of the aesthetics of the timepiece, a first in watchmaking. Creating an important part of the future DNA of the company.

The U.S. patent document for the Three Bridges design.

Tourbillon with Three Gold Bridges movements.

In 1980 following the crisis caused by the development of the quartz watch, traditional watchmaking was re-born. 20 pocket watch Tourbillons based on the original design were launched by Girard Perreguax. Each one took 1500 hours of to complete, (an example is shown above). The first Three Gold Bridges manual wound Tourbillon wristwatch was made in 1991. In 1998, the automatic winding Three Gold Bridges Tourbillon was launched, following 2 years of development.

To learn more about Girard-Perregaux