Epos is a manufacturer of mechanical watches, headquartered in Lengnau, Switzerland.

History

Early roots

The original company, which is told to be the ancestor of Epos, was founded in 1925 by James Aubert in

Vallée de Joux The Vallée de Joux () is a valley of the Jura Mountains mainly in the Swiss Canton of Vaud. The valley also continues into France ( Jura département) at its higher, southwestern, end. Located north of Geneva and northwest of Lausanne, its mea ...

. James was known at that time as a skillful engineer and craftsman devoting his lifetime to making and fixing complicated watch and clock mechanisms, e.g.

chronographs A chronograph is a specific type of watch that is used as a stopwatch combined with a display watch. A basic chronograph has hour and minute hands on the main dial to tell the time, a small seconds hand to tell that the watch is running, and ...

and minute repeaters. Later, he handed down his watchmaking knowledge and expertise to Jean Aubert, his nephew, and his son-in-law Jean Fillon. With the passion inherited from James, Jean Fillon had led the firm forward for decades with remarkable innovations.

Reemerge and present day

During the

quartz crisis The quartz crisis (Swiss) or quartz revolution (America, Japan and other countries) was the upheaval in the watchmaking industry caused by the advent of quartz watches in the 1970s and early 1980s, that largely replaced mechanical watches aroun ...

, the Swiss traditional watchmaking industry faced enormous hardships. Many long-established companies went bankrupt, including the original James Aubert SA firm. It was not until the 1980s that the remaining assets of the firm was bought by Peter Hofer - an expert involved in the horological business for years. Based on the leftovers of the old company, he and his wife Erna founded Epos in 1983. In 2002, Ursula Forster and her husband Tamdi Chonge took over Epos as its owners and directors. In 2014, their son Singi Chonge assumed responsibility for the company as chairman of the board.

Innovations

Among the company's innovations are: * Epos 3400, 2010: First watch with a reversed 24-hour-indication for the second time-zone, including two separate mechanical movements. * Epos 3435 'Verso', 2017: First watch with a reversed mechanical Unitas 6497 movement.

Manufacture

The majority of Epos models are equipped with

ETA Eta ( ; uppercase , lowercase ; ''ē̂ta'' or ''ita'' ) is the seventh letter of the Greek alphabet, representing the close front unrounded vowel, . Originally denoting the voiceless glottal fricative, , in most dialects of Ancient Greek, it ...

and

Sellita Sellita (Sellita Watch Co. SA) is a Swiss manufacturer of mechanical watch movements based in La Chaux-de-Fonds in the canton of Neuchâtel. Founded in 1950, Sellita was one of ETA's major outsourced assembly partners for their movements until 2 ...

movements. Depending on each collection, the movements will be executed in different levels or tuned with special in-house developed complications. Other standard options including sapphire glass and high grade

316L SAE 316L grade stainless steel, sometimes referred to as A4 stainless steel or marine grade stainless steel, is the second most common austenitic stainless steel after 304/A2 stainless steel. Its primary alloying constituents after iron, are chr ...

stainless steel Stainless steel, also known as inox, corrosion-resistant steel (CRES), or rustless steel, is an iron-based alloy that contains chromium, making it resistant to rust and corrosion. Stainless steel's resistance to corrosion comes from its chromi ...

Product lineups

Currently Epos offers collections under the names "Emotion", "Passion", "Originale", "Oeuvre D’Art", "Sophistiquée", "Perfection" and "Sportive". Further, the company also offers a "Ladies" and "Pocket Watch" collection.

Brand Ambassadors

* Mauro Peter *

Bogusław Linda Bogusław Linda (; born 27 June 1952) is a Polish actor known from films such as ''Pigs (1992 film), Psy'' and ''Tato''. He appeared in Andrzej Wajda's ''Man of Iron'' and ''Danton (1983 film), Danton'' and in Krzysztof Kieślowski's ''Blind Chan ...

* Gosia Rdest

International presence

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(Distributed by MODE9 (UK) Ltd.) *

Vietnam Vietnam, officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV), is a country at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of about and a population of over 100 million, making it the world's List of countries and depende ...

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References

External links

* Manufacturing companies of Switzerland Swiss watch brands Watch manufacturing companies of Switzerland {{manufacturing-company-stub