Zenith Zodiac Datejust

"A very rare tribute to a partnership from a past time"

90s

The Zodiac brand faltered through the quartz crisis and was purchased by Paul Buhré (part of Dixi, owner of Zenith), in 1979. Zodiac watches continued, now sold by Montres Zodiac SA (also called Zodiac Precision Watches) of Le Locle. These were produced by Zenith, with quartz models using movements from ETA. Zodiac officially became part of Zenith in 1982. The brand was not successful and disappeared after 1985.

On October 29, 1988, Zodiac (along with H. Moser & Cie., Jean Perret, Luxor, Paul Buhré, Robert Cart, and Terrasse) was dissolved. These brands were officially abandoned in 1989.

The Zodiac brand was re-launched in 1990 at the Basel Fair. Watches were produced by Zenith, but Zodiac maintained its own design, marketing, and distribution. This incarnation went bankrupt in 1997.

Zenith: Whether exponents of the more artistic crafts or of ultra-technical skills, all are engaged in the task undertaken by Georges Favre-Jacot 150 years ago: that of mastering each gesture to enable free-spirited creation of mechanical marvels combining noble watchmaking traditions with avant-garde innovations. Famed for its legendary 1969 El Primero calibre enabling short-time measurements accurate to the nearest 1/10th of a second, Zenith has since developed over 600 movement variations. In this third millennium, based on this same DNA, but with renewed energy, the brand has blazed the trail for fascinating new vistas in time measurement with the launch of the Defy El Primero 21 and the Defy Lab. The former opened the world of hundredth of a second timing, a quantum leap in terms of performance and engineering, impressively combining the historic heritage of Zenith with the future of watchmaking; while the latter, winner of the Innovation Prize at the 2017 Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève, challenged the very foundations of traditional watchmaking with the most accurate mechanical watch ever made. Energised by newly reinforced ties with a proud tradition of dynamic, avant-garde thinking, Zenith is writing its future… and the future of Swiss watchmaking.

Zodiac: The Zodiac watch company was founded by Ariste Calame in 1882 in the beautiful town of Le Locle, Switzerland. Calame had a proud lineage resulting from a long line of master watch makers in his family.  Wanting to follow in his father’s footsteps, Calame set up his own watch workshop where he focused on creating a timepiece which was original and dynamic. He believed that high quality control and managing all designs through to production and even choosing the tools by which the watch would be crafted was the key to achieve this objective.  The original name of the company was Ariste Calame and would later become Zodiac. Zodiac watches started production in 1908, the same year the company name was registered.

The founder’s son, Louis Ariste Calame, was sent to watchmaking school, and then began to participate in the business in 1895, and at the age of 20 he took over the business during that year.