Say goodbye to dull wristwatches and ‘hello’ to the Swiss beauty, the Oris watch. If you want a one-of-a-kind watch that blends quality and style, look no further. Oris has been making classic watches since 1904. If you’re looking for an eye-catching timepiece that stands out from the rest, then Oris is for you.
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History and Characteristics of Swiss Watch Brand Oris
Long-Standing Excellence in Quality and Design
Oris is a Swiss watch company established in 1904 in the picturesque Swiss town of Holstein. Oris is a household name in both the Swiss and international watch markets and continuously produces high-end watches for luxury connoisseurs. The company is distinguished by its classic designs, exemplary craftsmanship and attention to detail.
Innovative Technology With Classic Design
Oris has mastered the art of combining modern technology with classic design. The company’s timepieces feature ultra-sophisticated quartz movements made of the highest quality components. The watches also feature durable stainless steel and gold case backs and bezels, anti-reflective sapphire crystal glass, and colorful rubber straps.
Unique Feature: Red Rotor
Oris is known for its iconic “red rotor” found in its Automatic watches. This is a feature that differentiates Oris from the rest of the watch brands. The Red Rotor is a Stainless steel disk on the watch’s movement, coated in a vivid red color. It has become synonymous with the trademark of Oris.
Classic Models and Limited Editions
Oris has multiple collections ranging from luxury dress watches to chronographs and dive watches. Models such as the Artix GT Chronograph, Divers Sixty-Five and Pointer Date are just a few of the popular watches from the brand.
Limited Editions
- The Marine Heritage Limited Edition – Featuring a striking orange dial, this watch commemorates the 50th anniversary of Oris’s iconic Divers Sixty-Five watch.
- The Golden HoneyBee Limited Edition – Featuring a 18K yellow gold case and an intricate golden bead dial, this watch expresses Oris’s dedication to saving the honeybee.
- The Moonphase Limited Edition – Paying homage to a classic 1969 Oris dating back to the early days of the brand, this watch features a stunning blue sunray dial.
Main Models and Collections of Swiss Watch Brand Oris
Artix GT 53
This highly sophisticated chronograph watch features an ergonomic design, featuring a black and orange dial with silver-tone hands surrounded by a stainless steel case. The case is equipped with a quartz movement and a sapphire crystal glass. The Artix GT 53 also includes a black calf leather strap and water resistance up to 100 meters.
Divers Sixty-Five
This is one of the most iconic watches of Oris – and for good reason. The Divers Sixty-Five features a stainless steel case with a black dial and luminous hands. The dial is surrounded by a uni-directional bezel and is protected by a sapphire glass. The watch also features a stainless steel bracelet and a quartz movement.
Pointer Date
The Pointer Date is a vintage-inspired watch featuring an elegant design and great craftsmanship. It features a stainless steel case with a silver-tone dial and blued steel hands. The Pointer Date is powered by a quartz movement and has a water resistance of 100 meters. This watch is perfect for those who appreciate a classic style.
Oris is the perfect example of Swiss craftsmanship at its finest. With a long history of creating quality watches, Oris continues to impress us with its innovation and attention to detail. It offers classic designs for both women and men, and is renowned for its iconic Red Rotor feature. The beautiful timepieces of Oris will make a great addition to any collection.
Oris SA is a Swiss luxury manufacturer of mechanical watches. The company was founded in 1904 and is based in Hölstein in the canton of Basel-Landschaft.
Oris was founded by Paul Cattin and Georges Christian in the Swiss town of Hölstein. They bought the recently closed Lohner & Co watch factory, and on 1 June 1904 the two men entered into a contract with the local mayor. They named their new watch company Oris after a nearby brook, and they began the industrial manufacture of pocket watches. In its founding year, Oris employed 67 people.
In 1906, the firm opened an assembly plant and second factory in the nearby town of Holderbank. Another factory followed in Como in 1908. By 1911, Oris had become the largest employer in Hölstein, with over 300 workers. To entice more watchmakers, it built houses and apartments for its staff, and it expanded so that by 1929 it had additional factories in Courgenay (1916), Herbetswil (1925) and Ziefen (1925).
With the opening of the Ziefen factory and the electroplating plant in Herbetswil, Oris expanded its product range. The company began to fit bracelet buckles to its pocket watches, thereby transforming them into fully-fledged wristwatches.
In 1927, company co-founder Georges Christian died and Jacques-David LeCoultre became President of the Board of Directors. Jacques-David LeCoultre was Antoine LeCoultre’s grandson and the man who merged with Edmond Jaeger to form Jaeger-LeCoultre in 1937. Following the death of Georges Christian a year earlier, Oscar Herzog, Christian’s brother-in-law, took over as General Manager in 1928, a position he held for 43 years.
In 1936, Oris opened its own dial factory in Biel/Bienne. By that time, the company produced almost every element of its watch and clock products in-house. Oris introduced its signature pilot’s watch in 1938, the so-called Big Crown. The collection takes its name from the watch’s oversized crown, employed as an aid to pilots who adjust their watches while wearing leather gloves. Variations on this watch are still produced today.
During the Second World War, Oris’s distribution network beyond Switzerland was reduced significantly. To keep business alive, the company started manufacturing alarm clocks. With the end of the war, the company expanded again.
On 12 March 1934 the Swiss government introduced a law known as the Watch Statute, which was intended to protect and regulate the Swiss watch industry. The law prevented watch companies from introducing new technologies without permission. For Oris, the statute proved to be an obstacle because until that point, Oris had been using pin-lever escapement (Roskopf escapement) movements, which were claimed to be less accurate than the lever escapements used by some of Oris’s competitors.
Despite successes with this technology, Oris took action against the Watch Statute. In 1956 the company’s General Manager Oscar Herzog hired a young lawyer by the name of Dr Rolf Portmann who spent his first 10 years at the company campaigning to reverse the Watch Statute. Subsequently, the Watch Statute was gradually liberalised until it was abolished in 1971.
By the end of the 1960s, 44 per cent of all watches sold worldwide originated in Switzerland. Oris employed 800 people across a network of factories in Hölstein and beyond, and produced 1.2 million watches and clocks a year, making it one of the 10 largest watch companies in the world. The company developed its own tools and machinery, and even ran an apprenticeship scheme, training 40 engineers and watchmakers every year.
But then came the turning point. In the 1970s and early 1980s, quartz watches from Asia gained massive market share. The so-called ‘Quartz Crisis’ meant the end for around 900 watch companies in Switzerland and unemployment for two thirds of watch industry employees. Swiss manufacturers’ market share fell to 13 per cent worldwide.
In 1970, Oris gave up its independence and became part of Allgemeine Schweizer Uhrenindustrie AG (ASUAG), the predecessor of the Swatch Group. Oris began to manufacture quartz watches, too. However, this did not restore success. In the early 1980s, Oris employed only a few dozen people. In 1981, the production of its own movements was abandoned.
Like many other Swiss watch manufacturers in the early 1980s, Oris was on the verge of closure. Managing Director Dr Rolf Portmann – who was instrumental in the reversal of the Watch Statute – and Head of Marketing Ulrich W. Herzog took over the remainder of the company in 1982 as part of a management buyout. This turned Oris back into an independent company. Soon after, the newly formed and independent Oris SA elected to abandon quartz and produce solely mechanical timepieces in the mid-price segment.
It also produces a very small series of luxury promotional watches under the ‘Saros’ brand at the request of large companies for very special occasions. These watches made in Hölstein are only recognizable by the inscriptions on the back, the frame being fully dedicated to the subject of the promotion. The movements of these bespoke watches are mainly quartz, made in Switzerland.
The brand remains one of the very few Swiss watch manufacturers independent from large groups such as Swatch, Richemont or LVMH.
Since the turn of the millennium, the company has concentrated on the worlds of Diving, Culture, Aviation and Motor Sports. Since 2002, the Red Rotor has served as Oris’s registered trademark and distinguishing feature. In 2004, the Quick Lock Crown system was developed, which only requires a single clockwise turn of 120 degrees to secure it in place. In 2009, Oris introduced the Rotation Safety System, a device that locks the uni-directional rotating bezel of a diving watch into place, preventing accidental adjustment underwater. Oris patented the Oris Aquis Depth Gauge, its first mechanical depth gauge, in 2013. It allows water into a channel via a small hole at 12 o’clock. Water enters the hole under pressure, creating a watermark that corresponds to a depth gauge. As of the early 2020’s, the brand’s flagship product remains the Aquis diver watch line.
In 2005, Oris sponsored a civic event in Hölstein which featured a smiling bear. This “Oris Bear” subsequently became the company’s mascot.
In 2014, Oris celebrated 110 years of watchmaking with its first in-house-developed calibre for 35 years. Calibre 110 was a hand-wound movement that featured a 10-day power reserve and a patented non-linear power reserve indicator. In 2020, Oris introduced the Calibre 400, an in-house movement which is anti-magnetic up to 2250 gauss, has a 5-day power reserve (120 hours), a recommended 10-year service interval and comes with a 10-year warranty. Since 2014, Oris developed its in-house Movement Creation Program, which has, over the succeeding decade, unveiled ten new mechanical calibers, the latest of which (as of 2023) is the hand-wound caliber 473 with five days of power reserve, increased anti-magnetism and a 10-year warranty.
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