Ebel

Brand history

Founded 1911 in La Chaux-de-Fonds by Eugene Blum and Léon Lévy. LVMH acquired Ebel in 2004. The brand's design language, anchored by the coin-edge bezel and wave-lug integration, was developed in the Neuchatel watch-making capital.

Founded 1911 in La Chaux-de-Fonds by Eugène Blum and Léonie Lévy (whose initials inspired the EBEL acronym: Eugène Blum Et Léonie). The brand achieved mainstream recognition in the 1980s under the direction of Pierre-Alain Blum, who invested in a distinctive integrated-bracelet aesthetic and branded the positioning with "the architects of time": a campaign associated particularly with the 1911 Discovery (the first Ebel with an in-house-style integrated link bracelet) and the Sportwave. The brand was acquired by LVMH in 1999, then sold to Movado Group in 2004. The modern catalog is relatively modest compared to the brand's 1980s peak; the 1911 family in steel is the primary offering at CHF 2,000–4,000.