How to start a Swiss Made watch brand

1. Define the watch before you contact anyone

Swiss workshops receive many vague enquiries. The founders who get quick, serious answers are the ones who arrive with a clear brief. Before writing to a single supplier, put the following on paper:

• The watch itself: style, case diameter and thickness, materials, mechanical or quartz, complications, water resistance.
• Your positioning: the retail price you are aiming for, and therefore the production cost you can afford.
• Your first quantities: how many pieces for the first run, and what you hope to produce in the following years.
• Your timeline: when you want prototypes, and when you want to deliver the first watches to customers.

Quantity is the variable that shapes everything else. Many components involve tooling and set-up costs that are spread over the production run, so the same watch can cost very differently at 50, 300 or 1,000 pieces. Be honest about your volumes: suppliers prefer a realistic small order to an optimistic forecast that never materialises.

2. Choose your production model

There are two main ways to produce a Swiss watch as a new brand, and the choice determines how much of the project you manage yourself.

Working with a private label manufacturer. A single partner takes your design and delivers finished, inspected watches under your brand. It sources the movement and components, coordinates the subcontractors and handles assembly. This is the simplest route for a first collection, and it reduces the coordination risk, at the cost of less control over each supplier and a margin taken by the manufacturer. See the private label manufacturers in our index, and our comparison private label or your own supply chain.

Building your own supply chain. You source the movement, case, dial, hands, crystal, crown and bracelet separately, then entrust the assembly to a casing and assembly workshop. You keep full control over each component and each supplier relationship, but you take on the coordination: drawings, tolerances, lead times and quality checks between suppliers. See the assembly and casing workshops in our index.

Many brands start with a private label partner for their first collection, then progressively take over the sourcing of the components that matter most to their identity, such as the case or the dial.

3. Turn your design into technical drawings

A sketch or a 3D rendering is not enough to manufacture a watch. Each component needs technical drawings with dimensions, tolerances, materials and finishes, and the components must fit together: movement and case, dial and hands, crystal and bezel, case and bracelet.

If you do not have watch engineering skills in-house, a design office will translate your design into production-ready drawings and check its feasibility. Some private label manufacturers include this step. You can also work with a specialised prototyping and engineering service.

If you are aiming for Swiss Made, this step matters legally: for a mechanical watch, the mechanical construction and prototyping of the watch as a whole must be carried out in Switzerland (see section 8).

4. Source the movement

The movement is the heart of the watch and, for many new brands, the hardest part to source. It determines the thickness of the case, the position of the crown and the layout of the dial, so it should be chosen early, before the case design is finalised.

• Mechanical or quartz: this decides the price range, the servicing requirements and the customer you are addressing.
• Standard calibre or customised: a standard calibre is quicker to source; a customised or decorated movement strengthens your identity but adds cost and lead time.
• Availability and quantities: ask early about minimum quantities, lead times and whether the supplier works with independent brands.
• Swiss Made: for a Swiss Made watch, the movement itself must qualify as a Swiss movement.

Browse the movement suppliers and movement component makers listed in our index.

5. Source the exterior components

The exterior of the watch (the habillage) is what your customers see and touch. Each component is usually made by a different specialist:

• Case: middle case, bezel and case back, in steel, titanium, precious metals, ceramic or composites. See case manufacturers.
• Dial: base, finishes, printing, indices and appliques. See dial manufacturers.
• Hands and indices: see hands and applique makers.
• Crystal: usually sapphire, flat, domed or box-shaped, often with an anti-reflective coating. See sapphire crystal manufacturers.
• Crown and pushers: small parts that are critical for water resistance. See crown and pusher manufacturers.
• Bracelet and clasp: see bracelet and clasp manufacturers.

Send each supplier the same up-to-date set of drawings, and agree on who is responsible for the fit between components. Mismatched tolerances between a case maker and a crystal maker are a classic source of delays.

6. Build and test prototypes

Prototypes are where most problems appear: a crown that is hard to pull, a dial colour that looks different in daylight, hands that touch the crystal, a case that is more comfortable on paper than on the wrist. Plan for at least one round of corrections before committing to series production.

Test water resistance on your prototypes. A watch described as water-resistant must comply with ISO 22810 and withstand a minimum overpressure of 2 bar, the equivalent of 20 metres. A watch sold as a diver's watch must meet the stricter requirements of ISO 6425, including resistance to a depth of at least 100 metres.

7. Assembly, quality control and delivery

Once components are approved, the watch is assembled. Swiss workshops often describe assembly in stages, with definitions that vary slightly from one workshop to another:

• T0: pre-assembly of movement components.
• T1: assembly of the movement.
• T2: casing, including fitting the dial and hands and placing the movement in the case.
• T3: fitting the bracelet or strap, final checks, packaging and dispatch.

Agree in writing on the checks performed before delivery: water resistance, timekeeping, visual inspection, and the acceptance criteria for each. Plan for after-sales service from the start, because your customers will expect servicing and repairs.

8. Meet the Swiss Made requirements

Swiss Made is not a marketing label but a legal designation, defined by the Ordinance on the Use of «Switzerland» or «Swiss» for Watches. Under the rules in force since 2017, a watch is considered Swiss only if:

1. Its technical development is carried out in Switzerland.
2. Its movement is Swiss.
3. Its movement is cased up in Switzerland.
4. The manufacturer carries out the final inspection in Switzerland.
5. At least 60% of its manufacturing costs are incurred in Switzerland.

The movement has its own criteria, including a minimum share of Swiss manufacturing costs. The Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry (FH) publishes a detailed guide to the interpretation of these rules, which is the reference document to read before you mark a watch Swiss Made. Our guide Swiss Made rules explained walks through each requirement.

Using the Swiss Made designation without meeting the legal requirements is not a grey area: the FH actively pursues misuse of the label. Ask each supplier which steps they perform in Switzerland, and keep the documentation that supports your cost calculation.

9. Start small: minimum order quantities

Minimum order quantities are the first hurdle for a new brand. They vary widely from one supplier to another and from one component to another. Some Swiss workshops state publicly that they produce single pieces, prototypes or small series, which makes them natural partners for a first collection. See our list of suppliers for small production runs, and our guide to watch manufacturing MOQs.

When a supplier quotes a minimum quantity, ask whether tooling and set-up costs are included or charged separately, and whether the unit price changes for re-orders. A slightly higher unit price with low set-up costs is often the better deal for a first run.

10. Contact suppliers the right way

A good first message to a Swiss workshop is short and precise. Include your brand and its positioning, what you need from this supplier specifically, your target quantities and timeline, and the documents you can share (drawings, renderings). Workshops answer clear, realistic requests first. Our guide How to write a sourcing request includes a template.

You can send a request directly from any supplier profile in our directory. It goes straight to the workshop, which replies to you by e-mail.