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Swatch
divide their range of watches, children's watches and
jewellery into different classifications. Originals
is the name for the plastic watches for which they are famous which is then itself
subdivided into Gents,
Ladies,
Turnover,
Square,
Touch,
Jelly-in-Jelly
and SnowPass.
Irony
is a group of metal watches which divides into Diaphane,
Diaphane
Chrono, Big,
Chrono,
Medium,
Chrono
Medium, Lady
Lady, Petite
Seconde, Nabab
and new for Spring
2007. For sports watches try the FunScuba,
FunBoarder,
SnowPass
and any of the Chrono (chronograph) sections. For the
world's thinnest watches go to Skin
where you will find the 3.9mm Skin
Classic, and Skin
Chrono. For children we have Flik
Flak children's watches and for earrings,
rings,
necklaces,
bracelets
and broochs
try Swatch
Bijoux.
It
already fills whole libraries. And it is far from finished.
Here is the on-going story:
Swatch overcomes crisis and leads to
the survival of the Swiss watch industry.
In the mid-seventies, the Swiss watch
industry was in the midst of its worst crisis ever.
Technologically speaking, the Japanese competition had been
outclassed in 1979 with the launch of the
"Delirium," the world´s thinnest wristwatch with a
limited number of components. But the event that marked the
upturn in the industry´s fortunes was the founding of SMH,
the Swiss Corporation for Microelectronics and Watchmaking
Industries. And its answer to the crisis was Swatch-a slim
plastic watch with only 51 components (instead of the usual 91
parts or more) that combined top quality with a highly
affordable price. It first went on sale in 1983. Since this
time, it has gone on to become the most successful wristwatch
of all time, and The
Swatch Group, the parent company, is the largest and most
dynamic watch company in the world.
For many years, new developments have
been taking place alongside the standard Swatch watch in
plastic-from Irony (the metal Swatch) to the Swatch SKIN
Chrono (the world's thinnest chronograph) to Swatch Snowpass
(a watch with a built-in access control function which can be
used as a ski pass at many ski resorts throughout the world),
and Swatch Beat (featuring the revolutionary Internet Time).
Swatch was the Official Timekeeper
of the ATHENS 2004 Olympic Games. Outstanding technical
capabilities and advances in the fields of science and
technology were already proven by Swatch during its role as
the Official Timekeeper in both the 1996 Atlanta Centennial
Olympic Games and the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games.
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