The New Girard-Perregaux Laureato

The New Girard-Perregaux Laureato

When watch collectors talk about in-house movements, Girard-Perregaux is a brand that can’t be left out. The history of Girard-Perregaux’s Laureato stretches all the way back to the 1970s.

By Jonathan Bues

The history of Girard-Perregaux’s Laureato stretches all the way back to the 1970s – when the pioneering steel cased luxury sports watch with a metal bracelet carried a quartz movement – before it evolved to feature an automatic movement in the following decade.

Over the years, a range of features and complications were incorporated into the model, including at one point a tourbillon movement with blue sapphire bridges.

A Laureato hallmark is the heavily framed hexagonal bezel, which flows seamlessly into the integrated bracelet, fronted by a bold, no-nonsense dial. A luxury sport watch in steel that is dressy, practical and versatile, the Laureato has remained timeless from its inception to this day.

But let’s wind back for a bit. The 1970s was glorious for music, boasting the likes of Jimi Hendrix (pictured above) and The Who, but it wasn’t as kind to the world of Swiss watchmaking in the least. The introduction of quartz movements had made mechanical watches technically obsolete, bringing highly precise time measurement to the consumer that mechanical timepieces could not hope to match.

Joining the Quartz Race

So what did Girard-Perregaux (GP) do when the quartz crisis hit?