EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT TAG HEUER

Probably the watch everyone thinks of when they hear TagHeuer, in 1969 Heuer was still on a roll and released the iconic Monaco with its very distinctive square case. 

The watch became even more famous by the famous Hollywood star Steve McQueen. However, Heuer was soon to move away from their innovative automatic watches and pursue the new horological craze of the early 1970’s, quartz watches. 

By 1979 Heuer had released its classic iconic dive watch range which would later be the foundations of the now known Aquaracer. Heuer played around a lot with colour and style with different bracelet materials, sizes and bezels, the collection grew quickly into their number one selling watch at the time.

It was in 1985 that Heuer was merged and became the brand we know today, TagHeuer. TAG being an acronym for Technique d’Avant Garde, brought in huge financial resources and marketing and very soon put their skill set to use. You could go as far as saying that was the end of Heuer as everyone knew however, despite the watches to come from TagHeuer, 2020 saw the rebirth of going back to their origins and re-releasing some of those much loved Heuer pieces. 

In 1985 the ‘Series 2000’ was launched, essentially a 200m divers watch that now started to take more the shape of an Aquaracer from today's designs. Just one very short year later, the ‘Formula One’ was launched, a series known to be of an entry watch into the brand. It featured a plastic case, rotating diver’s bezel and rubber watch strap making them very light and easy to wear, and because they were so cheap people could make a small collection of them in different colours, much like Omega MoonSwatch.

TagHeuer did not stop there, another year later in 1987, the TagHeuer link was introduced as their more upmarket watch, designed to be worn with a wetsuit and enjoy sporting activities but then be worn with your dinner jacket as you sat enjoying a fancy meal overlooking the Monaco harbour after the Grand Prix. TagHeuer never lost sight of their interests in Formula One and being one of the few brands at the time to be heavily involved with motorsport, TagHeuer continued to incorporate forms of motorsport functionality and designs into their watches. 

The TagHeuer Link could be found as the daily watch for the legendary driver Ayrton Senna wore an S/el, a model that became the base for the Link range, with its gold accents on the bezel and dial, chronograph design and quartz movement meant the watch was mega accurate and lightweight. Something any racing driver practically only cared about! TagHeuer continued to produce more and more watches and before long they were one of the most profitable watch brands out there so naturally attracted the attention of a few investors.

1999 was the year the enormous LVMH group bought TagHeuer, the brand had colossal financial and marketing powers all over the world and they would use that to their advantage to sell even more TagHeuer’s to the public worldwide. There is of course no right or wrong moments for brands, merely history, however you can begin to see how the brand started off as just a pure Swiss boutique brand head-over-heels in love with producing fantastic watches and motorsport to a watch brand controlled by a giant luxury goods firm.

However, despite the new owners, some models were pushed as a way to make more money for the brand but Heuer watch engineers were still on the scene and helped get the TagHeuer Monaco V4 in 2004 to the market. A special Monaco edition designed to look like a race car's engine was definitely a bold design for its time and kept the original vision alive from the Heuer family. 2004 also saw the birth of the well-known Aquaracer line with its classic diver’s case, rotating bezel and polished centre link bracelet making it a very versatile watch to wear.

In 2010, TagHeuer created and released their first in-house chronograph movement since being bought by LVMH, the Calibre 1887. What was so special and fantastic about the Calibre 1887 is that it featured a column wheel and the same style of oscillating pinion that Heuer had patented in 1887. The Calibre 1887 would be the movement that powered a new generation of TagHeuer Carrera chronographs and served as their base movement; they would design many of their other chronograph movements later.

TagHeuer also started to introduce more of their Carrera watches on rubber straps to give them a sportier look and feel, but above all TagHeuer still wanted their watches to be worn by racing drivers and therefore put that at the centre of most of their designs and concepts when creating watches. You can see this today in 2024 with the Red Bull Formula One team crew and drivers alike wearing many of TagHeuer’s watches, but given they sponsor the team, you would also expect to see their watches on the team's wrist too!

2015 onwards became the new era for Tagheuer, they started to realise that whilst they did offer some excellent watches, there was an increasing demand for more original and traditional designs. TagHeuer were known for making watches around the 43mm size and whilst it was in demand in the early 2000’s, the watch world slowly started shifting to more sensible sized watches around the classic 36mm to a nice 41mm case size as opposed to huge and thick watch cases. 

TagHeuer had the perfect history of smaller designed chronographs, watches like the Carrera and Skipper to launch again paying closer tribute to their roots. From 2015 through to today in 2024, Tageheuer have re-launched several of their vintage style chronographs with modern technology and durability, giving their customers the best of both worlds. The likes of the Carrera, Aqauracer, Skipper, Glassbox chronograph and for those who love the extra tech, the TagHeuer connected offers you an alternative to the Apple watch from a brand with its history rooted deep in Swiss watchmaking.