Alpina

As with few other long-established watch brands still in existence today, the history of the twentieth century is mirrored in the company history of Alpina itself. In 1883, on the initiative of the watchmaker Gottlieb Hauser, an originally Swiss association of leading watchmakers came together. Following official registration as ALPINA in 1901, the founding fathers swiftly made a good name for themselves as “Alpinists”. The “Corporation d’Horlogers Suisse” – a kind of “united brotherhood of watchmakers” – had pledged itself to safeguarding the quality of movement and watch. Before long they were also attracting attention with the development and manufacture of their own calibres. 20 years later, 2,000 retailers worldwide, concentrated in Eastern, Northern and Central Europe, were selling the watch brand from Biel, at once robust and appealing. The ideals of Gottlieb Hauser have remained the guiding maxim of the brand to this day. His core target group consisted of people who expose themselves to extreme conditions or who devote themselves to technical perfection: air force pilots, divers, members of the naval and infantry forces, summit climbers and everyday adventurers. The ideal Alpina of Hauser must still meet the quality conditions formulated back then: water-resistant, antimagnetic, protected against shock and encased in robust stainless steel.

ALPINA founded branches in Geneva and Besançon and expanded into Germany with offices in Berlin and Glashütte, Saxony. North American watch producers such as Gruen and Hamilton also joined the cooperative idea of Alpina. The import restrictions from Switzerland to Germany during the First World War, however, struck Alpina to the core. After 1917 the brand split into two independent companies with sites in Geneva and Glashütte. The nineteen-twenties brought the Alpina manufacture a renewed upturn, until the Second World War destroyed the business relationships that were still flourishing between the two parts of the group. At the demand of the Allies, the German Alpina now traded as “Dugena” = Deutsche Uhrmacher-Genossenschaft Alpina. The quartz crisis, which flooded the market with cheap watches, swept away the ALPINA of old. In 1972 German investors moved the company headquarters, and a business volume temporarily reduced to pure trading, from the watchmaking mecca of Geneva to Cologne.

Alpina initially had no part in the renaissance of the mechanical watch, until a powerful revival brought the brand back to life in 2002. Under the flag of the watch manufacture Frédérique Constant, Alpina Watches International SA relaunched the rocket. At BASELWORLD 2003 Alpina already presented itself anew as a complete model series under the model name Avalanche, conceived as a beacon. In the years that followed, the house established itself in a higher league with six completely new complications: AL-980 Tourbillon, AL-760 Flyback Chronograph, AL-718 World Timer, AL-950 Automatic Regulator, AL-710 Small Date. 76 years after the very first Alpina 4 with its hand-wound calibre – the most modern sports watch of its day – Alpina issued a new interpretation with the “Alpiner collection”, uniting all the traditional values that the founder Gottlieb Hauser chiselled into the credo of Alpina. They remain the applicable standard for sports watches to this day. HORANDO is one of the 300 German luxury watch retailers who today display the brand with the indestructible lion’s heart in their cabinets, both in store and online.

Around the core of the Alpina range – the currently six lines of the Alpiner collection – further assortments are grouped, above all for male lovers of luxury watches. The Alpina Startimer collection addresses aviators, while the Alpina Seastrong is aimed at deep-sea divers; the Horological Smartwatch released in 2015, in the unisex trend, appeals to aficionados of both sexes who wish to use wristwatch and smartphone in a single tool. The casual elegance of the Regulator, Avalanche and Extreme Chrono Double inspires enthusiasm not only among amateur and extreme sportsmen and technology enthusiasts. People of taste and discernment with a decided leaning towards understatement are always well advised with an Alpina luxury watch – not least because its breadth of variation offers a great deal to a great many.

Not only at mountain altitudes, where the air grows thinner, but also in the cockpit of airliners, the high-precision Alpina is a capable companion. Through the date display and the case back, the Alpina Startimer Pilot Manufacture permits an admiring view of the AL-710 automatic calibre. Typical Alpina symbolism on the dial: a red triangle at the lower end of the seconds hand, a date display with a small hand at 6 o’clock. White luminous hands and the hand-applied numerals and indices contrast elegantly with the anthracite-coloured dial background. A touch more elegant are the Alpina 130 Heritage Pilot chronographs in gold with rotor. Their AL-860B4H5 movement equips them for light years. The Avalanche Extreme ladies’ wristwatch in white ceramic takes a great step into the noble bracket. No fewer than 50 genuine diamonds are set on the gold-coloured bezel and at the hour positions of the dial. Decorative screws with a triangle at their centre appear like a reflection of the original Alpina symbol.

Following the extremely well received Alpina Extreme Diver 1000 metre collection of 2008, the watch manufacture showed courage with colour a year later and issued diving watches whose inner logic is revealed in their very names: Côte d’Azur, Black Ocean, Orange Sunset, Yellowtail. Even at a depth of 1000 metres, every Alpina Extreme Diver proves its suitability for divers with absolute legibility and water resistance. Super-LumiNova markings on the black PVD steel case with a diameter of 48 mm ensure luminous hands and indices. The AL-525 calibre provides a 42-hour power reserve. The helium escape valve, indispensable for pressure equalisation within the case, sits at the 10 o’clock position. A refined detail: through the sapphire crystal of the case back, the Alpina logo placed on the rotor catches the eye. An all-round accomplished sports watch that brings pleasure, even if one rarely ventures to a depth of 1000 metres.