Last month, Singapore hosted Zenith’s travelling exhibition, themed A Star Through Time, which pays historic tribute to the first automatic chronograph movement in watchmaking history, as well as the gentleman who saved the movement from irrevocable destruction. When the brand unveiled the El Primero in 1969, it was a triumph and milestone in the watch industry. But just six years later, when the brand’s parent company decided it would focus on quartz timepieces, it intended to auction off the mechanical watchmaking equipment of the brand by the ton.
It was thanks to the actions of workshop foreman Charles Vermot (bottom), who secretly stashed the presses, cams, components and plans for the design of the El Primero bit by bit each evening, that Zenith was able to re-create the movement when…
