Frederique Constant

Frederique Constant was founded by Peter Stas and his future wife Aletta Bax in 1988 in Geneva, with the objective of creating affordable luxury watches. It was during a week’s holiday in Switzerland that the idea of creating their own brand came to them. Indeed, while visiting several watch retailers, they realised that Swiss watches were relatively expensive.

On their return, although Peter was busy setting up a subsidiary for Philips Electronics in Hong Kong and Aletta was working in an insurance agency’s legal department, they decided to create Frederique Constant.

They spent all their free time working with a Geneva watchmaker on a project that had been on their minds for several years: the development of affordable mechanical watches. Every evening, they assembled by hand the six models which would constitute their first collection called “The 18th Century Collection”. One can imagine the pride of Aletta and Peter contemplating their first dials signed “Frederique Constant”.