Built on a century of firsts.
Founded in Saint-Imier, Switzerland in 1864, Berna quickly earned its place among the great names of Swiss watchmaking, winning gold medals at international exhibitions across Melbourne, Amsterdam, Paris, and Chicago.
In 1883, the Berna introduced the world's first waterproof watch: L'Imperméable. Ten years later, at the 1893 World's Exposition in Chicago, Berna unveiled the first flyback chronograph and won a gold medal. Decades before the complication was adopted by the wider industry.
In 1913, Berna made the world's first yachttimer. Its iconic 5-aperature design is still found on watches all around the world. Berna's 1/100th-of-a-second stopwatches brought precision industrial timing to European factories, setting a standard years before the rest of the industry followed.
Where Watchmaking Met the World
When accuracy was a matter of life and death, militaries turned to Berna. Its field watches were issued to armed forces, and its precision timing instruments found their way into military aviation on multiple continents. The same movements that won gold medals at international exhibitions were built into instruments used in some of the most consequential moments of the 20th century. At its height, Berna operated a sprawling factory complex in Saint-Imier, ran multiple sub-brands, and counted governments, sports federations, and industrial giants among its clients — a scale that few Swiss watchmakers of the era could match.