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Seiko Ladies Watches: Always At The Cusp Of Technology


   Apr 16

Seiko Ladies Watches: Always At The Cusp Of Technology

The Seiko Corporation began in 1895. The first time pieces manufactured by Seiko were wall clocks. These were followed by five watches, also known as pocket watches. But in 1923, the only Seiko factory and the corporate headquarters were destroyed in the fires initiated by the Kanto earthquake, which devastated Tokyo. The company had yet to begin manufacturing Seiko watch.

The Taisho Era began in Japan in 1912; the new emperor was taken as a good omen for business. The Seikosha company decided it was time to introduce a new watch, which, for the first time, used the brand name Seiko. This branding would continue into the current day for wristwatches, while wall clocks continued under the Seikosha brand name. This new Seiko watch had a diameter of approximately 1.1 inches, tiny by current standards.

Although watches have been around for a very long time, their internal workings remain a mystery to most people. One of the most confusing parts of the internal workings of the watch is the movement. The watch’s movement involves all the moving pieces of the watch, with the exception of the hands. This type of movement was obviously much easier to understand since mechanical watches used gears and a mainspring. In keeping with tradition, even quartz and digital watches continue to use the phrase movement.

Digital watches were first introduced to the marketplace by two separate American companies. The resulting excitement within the world of watch-making is a revealing lesson for all businesses. While these first Seiko ladies watches were more accurate, they had problems with high price and short lifespans. Their introduction, however, sent a spark through the Swiss watch making industry as they took another look at the quartz movement.

In what is now a classic example of how business can blind itself to the future by relying on past success, it was the Swiss that first introduced a quartz movement watch at the International Chronometric Competition in 1967. They had become convinced their mechanical watches, the most accurate in the world, would remain the staple for timepieces for the future. In 1967, they showed their first watch with a quartz movement, which they did not patent since it was considered only a passing fad. But the world was watching, and learned fast.

The advent of the accurate quartz movement allowed for a revolution in the watch-making industry. With size no longer the defining factor in manufacturing, watches could be made in any size and shape, as long as the face remained flat. Digital readout watches became famously popular, especially after they appeared in a blockbuster science fiction movie. Watches for women became more than just a functional accessory, they became fashionable.

The watches of today are far more than simple devices used to keep time. They are accurate enough to assist with celestial navigation and serve multiple functions as well. Other technologies advance, so the comic strip radio watch may never be financially practical, but the technology to produce it exists. Watches now come with calculators, schedulers, and many keep two time zones at a time, with specialty watches available programmed with every time zone.

Seiko ladies watches have grown and developed like the rest, and now introduce watches designed using electronic ink technology, sure to keep the mens wristwatch relevant for another generation.

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