aurice Lacroix saw daylight in 1975, just as Switzerland’s watch industry was beginning to feel the fallout from electronic movements — a situation the brand would turn to its advantage.

The company behind the brand, Desco Von Schulthess, was established in 1889 as an importer of raw silk. Building on its success and a solid network, it branched out into other luxury products, including watches. By 1946 Desco Von Schulthess was distributing the likes of Jaeger-LeCoultre and Audemars Piguet in Asia.

As business thrived, Desco Von Schulthess decided to expand beyond distribution and assemble watches for third parties as a private label manufacturer. It did this through Tiara, opened in 1961 in Saignelégier, where Maurice Lacroix is still headquartered.

Maurice Lacroix on the cover of Europa Star in 1987.

©Europa Star archives

Once again business boomed and an idea took seed: the group had an established production facility, why not launch its own watch brand? Of course it would need a name, ideally French (like that of the famous Swiss brands) and preferably something with an elegant, even romantic, ring to it. One of the executives at Desco Von Schulthess, so the story goes, started flicking through the directory of the group’s French-speaking employees, stopping at the letter L and “LACROIX, Maurice, director of the silk division.”

The gentleman in question was based in Lyons, France, some way from Saignelégier, but his name was a perfect fit for Desco Von Schulthess’s new venture. Maurice Lacroix it was!

Become a “Manufacture Horlogère Suisse”

Despite a challenging climate in the years following its creation, the newly established Maurice Lacroix made good progress, prudently focusing business on neighbouring countries such as Austria, Spain, then Germany, which would become its main market. In the words of former CEO Martin Bachmann, “We were already making mechanical watches at sensible prices and our partners benefited from attractive margins. This has been one of Maurice Lacroix’s strengths from day one.”

The 1975 is the elegant dress watch that was missing from Maurice Lacroix’s collections, newly arrived in time for the 50th anniversary.

A small watchmaking group was taking shape. In 1989 Maurice Lacroix’s parent company acquired Queloz, a casemaker, also based in Saignelégier. “Queloz took us to the next level”, notes Serge Barrabas, industrial manager from 2001 to 2008. “We were working with precious metals such as gold and platinum, as well as titanium and zalium. It was pure craftsmanship.”

Between 1978 and 1985, Desco Von Schulthess also owned Girard-Perregaux. As sister company to Maurice Lacroix, it strengthened the reputation of the younger brand whose ambitions were clear: become a “Manufacture Horlogère Suisse”.

In a decade, the 1990s, that measured commercial success by volume sales, the brand maintained a vast product offering. Certain markets were even allowed to launch their own collections, with the risk of diluting the brand’s message (as many as 600 collections in the 1980s). The Calypso, introduced in 1990, became the brand’s signature watch. Modern and affordable, it had great wrist presence thanks to a distinctive “six claw” bezel.

The Aikon Automatic Wotto, limited to 1,000 pieces, is covered with illustrations by British artist Wotto, a leading figure in street art.

A skeletonised version of the Calypso, with particular attention to finishing, followed in 1993. Skeletonisation was something Maurice Lacroix had been exploring since 1987 with its Les Mécaniques collection, ahead of a market that would take several more years to embrace this “aesthetic complication”. Then, in the early 2000s, the Calypso was dropped in favour of other strategies. Gone, but not forgotten, as we shall see…

The incumbent CEO, Stéphane Waser, recalls how “when I joined in 2008, the Calypso was no longer part of the catalogue and no other collection had emerged to take its place. The brand’s positioning was unclear, lost among so many, possibly too many, collections.”

The 2000s were a decade of immense creativity in mechanical watchmaking and, in keeping with the mood, Maurice Lacroix pursued its haute horlogerie objective, demonstrated by the Pontos and, to an even greater degree, the Masterpiece collection. Back in the 1980s, when quartz ruled, the brand had acquired a large stock of vintage mechanical movements (at an unbeatable price). In 1986 they became the basis for the Les Mécaniques collection of watches with complex dials, one of the best-known being the Five Hands.

Maurice Lacroix has introduced new iterations of the Aikon Automatic Skeleton, building on the success of the 39mm monochrome version released in 2022.

The brand introduced complications to its portfolio, including chronographs, split-seconds chronographs, perpetual calendars, day-date displays, moon phases, alarm functions and jumping hours. The Masterpiece collection that launched in 1992 showed how much of a forward-thinking enterprise Maurice Lacroix was, anticipating the return of complex mechanisms. What more telling symbol of this than the retirement of the Calypso, a model that had sold by the hundreds of thousands, and the rise of the Masterpiece? Annual production dipped below the 100,000 units mark while average price increased, again a reflection of the direction Swiss watchmaking was taking in the 2000s: lower volumes, higher value.

Under Philippe Merk’s stewardship, processes were brought in-house and the brand introduced its first movement, the ML106 chronograph calibre, which was conceptualised and developed by Maurice Lacroix’s design engineers. A succession of models confirmed the brand’s elevated positioning, from the Mémoire 1 in 2007, whose “mechanical memory” complication switched between Chrono and Time modes, to the Starside, a women’s model with a striking dial design. Marketing spend increased significantly, to reinforce global awareness of the brand: the first to enlist Roger Federer as an ambassador. Maurice Lacroix could finally lay claim to the title of “Manufacture Horlogère Suisse”.

The Calypso’s revenge

The best-laid plans… The 2009 financial crisis was starting to bite into Swiss watch sales when Maurice Lacroix’s parent company, Desco Von Schulthess, began handing over to another trading house, Zurich-based DKSH, the distributor in Asia of premium brands including Breitling, Corum, Junghans, Ulysse Nardin, Harry Winston and Parmigiani Fleurier. In 2011 DKSH became the new owner of Maurice Lacroix.

Little by little, Maurice Lacroix forged its new identity, that of the “urban cool” brand we know today, dialling down complications to focus on more accessible price points. Once again, it was moving with the times, as demand for luxury sport watches and form watches eclipsed complicated designs and mechanisms. And who should return as the symbol of this new positioning than the Calypso, renamed the Aikon and reinterpreted for a modern audience as of 2016, with quartz then automatic movements.

Starting at CHF 650, the 1975 collection features both automatic and quartz movements.

Having joined the brand in 2008 as CMO, prior to his appointment as Chief Executive in 2014, Stéphane Waser was in the front line of this transition. “I arrived at a brand which, in the space of a few years, had upped its game significantly, not least through investments in movements, after ETA threatened to cut off deliveries to third parties. We had experienced some amazing years at Basel [watch fair] thanks to this high-end strategy, but were overstretched and finding it more and more difficult to fulfil orders. Then the financial crisis hit, just as we were heading for a new record, having tripled the average price of orders.”

The brand responded with a more affordable offering, relaunching the Eliros at CHF 500, but the move upscale was ongoing and there was no way it could make a U-turn overnight (Maurice Lacroix continues to draw on manufacturing expertise acquired during this era, for example with the Masterpiece collection).

These strategic realignments resulted in a confused brand image. “There has to be an instant association between a brand and a product, and Maurice Lacroix lacked that. The Masterpieces were outstanding products but, at over CHF 12,000, were not representative of our core offering. We needed a model that would set us apart and for years there had been talk of bringing back the Calypso…”

A new 24 x 34mm interpretation of the Fiaba is inspired by a pebble’s smooth forms.

Yes, that Calypso. The 1990s bestseller and “target” of the strategy to move upmarket was about to get its revenge. This symbol of a previous life was ripe for reinvention. There were other contenders, other projects put to the test, but the Calypso came out ahead – scientifically.

Under its new name, the Aikon, complete with an on-trend integrated bracelet, debuted in 2016 with a quartz calibre, followed two years later by automatics and returning in a multitude of materials, sizes and variants ever since. It is (for the second time) the cornerstone of the brand. Including in this 50th anniversary year.

The Aikon is the mainstay but there is more in this jubilee year. Maurice Lacroix is completing its line-up with the strategic launch of a dress watch, the aptly named 1975. The Fiaba women’s collection gets a makeover. The Pontos S Diver is as popular as ever. And there is more to come from the Aikon. All will be revealed later this summer…