White Star - More than 130 years of Swiss watchmaking, now available in the UK
With roots reaching back to 1895 in La Chaux-de-Fonds, White Star comes from one of the most important places in the history of Swiss watchmaking. Founded by the Weiss family, the company developed across several generations, creating timepieces, technical innovations and patents during a period when the modern wristwatch itself was still evolving. Today, that story begins a new chapter in Britain, and we are delighted to announce that
White Star creations are now available in the UK through Sincrono Luxury.
A history worth bringing back
White Star’s story is not a recently invented heritage narrative. The company lived through the development of Swiss watchmaking, expanded its manufacturing activities and produced watches whose designs reflected the changing character of each era.
Its archives reveal a company fascinated not simply by telling the time, but by finding new ways to express it. Technical patents appeared alongside distinctive dial layouts and functions, while models such as Diagrafic in 1951, Neografic in 1953, Unigrafic in 1958 and Chronografic in 1969 established a design language that was unmistakably its own. When the quartz crisis transformed the Swiss watch industry during the 1970s and 1980s, White Star eventually became dormant. But the history remained, as did an extraordinary archive of designs waiting to be rediscovered. That is precisely what makes its return so interesting.
Heritage without imitation
Reviving an historic company is not simply a matter of opening an old catalogue and reproducing what was there before. White Star has taken a far more interesting route. The original designs provide the foundation, but the those designs have been reconsidered for the present. Cases, proportions, materials, movements and finishing have evolved, while the visual character that made the originals interesting has been protected. The result is not nostalgia for nostalgia’s sake. A modern White Star feels contemporary on the wrist, yet when you understand where the design originated, another layer appears. That relationship between past and present is one of the reasons we wanted White Star at Sincrono.
Swiss watchmaking where it belongs
There is also something deeply appropriate about the fact that White Star remains connected to La Chaux-de-Fonds, the city where its story began and one of the great centres of Swiss horology.
The modern collections demonstrate that heritage through beautifully executed cases, carefully finished dials, Swiss movements and an attention to detail that becomes increasingly apparent the longer the watch is handled. The Chronografic, for example, revives White Star’s 1969 chronograph around a modern movement developed and produced in La Chaux-de-Fonds. Neografic reinterprets the celestial personality of a 1953 design. Diagrafic takes one of the company’s most important historical models and gives its unusual displays new mechanical life. Different timepieces, different personalities, but the same underlying idea: Swiss watchmaking should combine precision with imagination.
Why White Star belongs at Sincrono
What attracted us was not simply the age of the name. History alone does not make a watch desirable.
What matters is what a company does with that history. White Star has chosen to use its archives as inspiration rather than restriction. White Star designs retain the individuality of their predecessors but feel alive, colourful and relevant rather than preserved behind glass.
That matters enormously to us. At Sincrono we look for watches with personality, with guile and uniqueness, the personality that creates an emotional reaction. White Star has those qualities. There is elegance, historical heritage, Swiss craftsmanship, and powerful imagination.
White Star, now in the UK
For British collectors, this is also an opportunity to discover one of the great historic Swiss names. White Star is writing the next part of its story now, and Sincrono Luxury is proud to bring the collections to the UK. From the celestial character of Neografic to the purity of Unigrafic, the extraordinary displays of Diagrafic and the sporting personality of Chronografic, there is a remarkable amount to discover. A Swiss house born more than a century ago. A new generation of garde-temps. And now, a new home in Britain.
Welcome to Sincrono, White Star.
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