New Automatics from LIP

LIP are France’s largest and oldest watch company, dating back to 1867. LIP is a very familiar brand in France, being known as the “Renault” of the French watch world, producing innovative design watches that are accessibly priced.

The brand became firmly established in the French conciousness during the First World War, when LIP mass produced watches for artillery officers in the French army.

Starting back in the late 1960′s, LIP hired some famous industrial designers to elaborate a new “design” range of watches, which was a first at the time in the watch world.

Designers included Francois de Baschmakoff and Roger Tallon, one of France’s best known industrial designers, whose product designs include the iconic TGV high speed train and the Paris Metro map, amongst many others.

The new automatic collection of LIP watches draws direct inspiration from these design icons. The Big TV watch was originally designed back in 1975 by Roger Tallon, and instantly became a classic design of the era. The watch has a characteristic, prominent square “coffin” case, and a bold, thick leather strap, combined with a simple and easily readable watch face.

The Big TV design has now been updated by LIP “in-house” designer Prisca Briquet, who has evolved this watch and others to include more eco-friendly automatic movements. The watch is now available in all black or all chocolate brown colour finishes, in addition to being optionally available with sleek steel strap, again in chocolate or brown to match the case and face of the watch.

Prisca Briquet has also taken Tallon’s distinctive coffin case and bold strap, and replaced the regular hour, minute and second hand movement with a new hour, minute, second revolving disc movement, which is again automatic”.