Louis Brandt Freres In 1848, in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Louis Brandt, watchmaker, started his own manufacture of metal and silver pocket watches which he exported throughout Europe, and particularly to England. Shortly thereafter, he also started making gold pocket and fob-watches which were received with great success by their clientele. In 1879, his sons Louis-Paul and César joined the business and the new manufacture was established in Bienne in the early 1880s. Over the course of ten years, the manufacture had become the largest in Switzerland. At that time, the Brandt brothers introduced new production techniques, mechanization and automation, which were patterned after those used in the United States. They transformed the small-series manufacture of watches into industrial-scale production, thereby entering the world arena.