Time to Celebrate
CITIZEN marks their 100th anniversary
Now celebrating its 100th year in the industry, the CITIZEN brand continues to ask itself this question: "What makes a watch better?" With a commitment to excellence, and a passion for creating precise, beautiful, revolutionary timepieces, CITIZEN has pursued the essence of the watch with visionary zeal.
At Baselworld 2018, the World Watch and Jewellery Show, the Citizen Watch Group unveils its new booth: the Time Theatre, where the six brands of the group are exhibiting together - CITIZEN, Bulova, Arnold & Son, Frederique Constant, Alpina and CANPANOLA. Open to the public, the Time Theatre is designed to be a place that celebrates the concept of time, where people can gather and honor the special moments in their lives. The latest models from the six Citizen Watch Group brands are presented at Baselworld - a fitting occasion to showcase the group's deep appreciation for craftsmanship in watch-making and distinguished design.
Marrying state-of-the-art technology with high-quality craftsmanship, the CITIZEN brand has introduced numerous innovations, including Eco-Drive, CITIZEN's proprietary light-powered technology, and Satellite Wave GPS, that enables watches to receive time signals from GPS satellites for superior accuracy. CITIZEN also designs watches that are extraordinarily thin, small, and beautiful.
This year, CITIZEN revealed the Cal.0100, the world's first light-powered Eco-Drive movement to deliver an accuracy of ± 1 second a year* as its concept model. The Cal.0100 is completely sustainable, relying only on light as its power source and the mechanics of its internal movement to deliver precise timekeeping, autonomously and continuously.
CITIZEN called on its experience built up over the past 100 years and technological know-how, to achieve this accuracy. The breakthrough was evolving the system inside the watch, with the development of an integrated circuit, helping to minimize deviations caused by external factors such as temperature and gravity.
Such accuracy in the Cal.0100 takes quartz watches to a new level. If a watch can lose accuracy at perhaps 5 seconds a day, then over a year this represents a loss of around 30 minutes. The CITIZEN Cal.0100 is optimized for supreme accuracy, refining that deviation to just ± 1 second in a year, all without ever having to replace the battery.
After all, the most essential function of a watch is to keep displaying the correct time. With Cal.0100, CITIZEN has proven its technology for ultra-high precision.
Also at Baselworld, CITIZEN is featuring their acclaimed installation "LIGHT is TIME", designed by renowned Paris-based architect Tsuyoshi Tane (Atelier Tsuyoshi Tane Architects), in collaboration with the CITIZEN design team. The experiential installation involves suspending over 90,000 main plates - the main movement that serves as the foundation for watches - in the air to create a glimmering universe.
"CITIZEN came to take on the challenge of making watches that show how 'time changes by light' in accordance with the company's philosophy of 'watches for all citizens,'" Tane revealed when the installation was presented at the Milan Design Week in 2014. "We found inspiration from CITIZEN's watch-making and finally hit on this simplest of concepts: 'LIGHT is TIME.'"
Tane further explained that light was born at the beginning at the universe, the Big Bang. "Time is light. If there were no light, then there would be no time. In the 20th century, mankind digitized time, measured it and continued to economize our time, until eventually we forgot about its relationship with the essence of light. Without light we never would have had the wonders of the universe, the richness of our planet or the joy and pleasure of our lives. 'LIGHT is TIME' - the manifestation of light's return to time - is our great challenge of the 21st-century."
Whether it's an accumulation of seconds, minutes, and hours, all accounted for on our wristwatches—or perhaps, in life, it can be interpreted simply as a series of momentary events that occur.
"Throughout our existence we have continually sought to define the meaning of 'time'", says Citizen Watch President and CEO Toshio Tokura, in his message for Baselworld 2018.
"Whether it's an accumulation of seconds, minutes, and hours, all accounted for on our wristwatches—or perhaps, in life, it can be interpreted simply as a series of momentary events that occur. Time truly is precious, the tools to measure and communicate time must be accurate, and CITIZEN's unwavering mission and pursuit for accuracy has continued since its founding in 1918."
For the past 100 years, CITIZEN's enduring passion has been to keep making watches that citizens all over the world will love. And for the next 100 years, the company intends to continue this pursuit of excellence, pushing the possibilities of watch-making design and technology. What makes a watch better? For CITIZEN, it is their guiding principle: "Better Starts Now". Behind every CITIZEN time piece is a commitment to the simple belief that it always possible to make something better - and now is the time to do it.
*As of February 2018, for an analogue light-powered watch, according to research by Citizen Watch Co., Ltd.