Behind the sleek, minimalist visages of Vulcain watches are technically sophisticated masterpieces. You might have read about how Vulcain’s founder Maurice Ditisheim exhibited his watches at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893 and how the company’s Grande Complication was awarded a bronze medal at the World’s Fair in Paris in 1889. 

The brand’s most definitive watch is the Vulcain Cricket, the first wristwatch in the world to feature an alarm complication. Vulcain made watches for the military during the Second World War, and the brand eventually developed a special watch in 1947 with an alarm that sounded similar to a cricket.