Raymond Weil, founder of the eponymous brand and one of watchmaking’s most successful entrepreneurs, has passed away, after a lifetime in the watch business. He was 87.

He started his career in the industry in 1949, fresh out of university. He joined Camy and stayed there until the Quartz Crisis, when he left to found Raymond Weil alongside Simone Bedat (who later went on to create her own brand). Along with contemporaries like Jean-Claude Biver and Ernest Schneider whose rise began with the Quartz Crisis, Weil was a true watchmaking entrepreneur.

Though not as well known as some of his peers in high horology, Weil was one of the great success stories in watchmaking. The Weil family have been a fixture on the Swiss rich list published by the financial magazine Bilanz for several years, with an estimated fortune of CHF225. Though long retired, Weil remained on the board of his company until late last year. The Weil family still owns the firm, which is run by his son-in-law, Olivier Bernheim, as well as two grandsons.

The eponymous brand

Established in 1976, Raymond Weil is one of the few firms established during that era that has not only survived, but prospered. The firm made its name producing entry-level timepieces with classical designs reminiscent of more expensive watches. At its peak in the late 1980s to mid 1990s, the brand was selling well over 500,000 watches a year, making it one of the biggest exporters of watches in Switzerland.

Today the brand remains a big seller but far from its peak, especially when compared to the growth of the rest of the industry, with an estimated production of 200,000 watches bringing in revenue of around CHF150 million.

In the 1980s and 1990s the brand’s widespread advertising campaigns meant that Raymond Weil became a widely recognised name. But in recent years the company’s strategy of luxury for the masses was no longer unique. It moved itself upmarket, with mixed success. But perhaps the greatest mark of Weil’s success is that most buyers of his timepieces were unaware the brand was established within their lifetimes, and the man whose name was on the dial was still alive.