Zodiac

Switzerland · Founded 1882

Founded 1882 in Le Locle by Ariste Calame; adopted the Zodiac name by 1908. Made history at the 1953 Basel Fair with the Sea Wolf, one of the earliest purpose-built dive watches, launched shortly before the Rolex Submariner. Ownership passed through Willy Gad Monnier (1990, ex-TAG Heuer) and Montres Zodiac SA, which filed for bankruptcy in Nov 1997; Genender International acquired the brand's assets in Sept 1998; Fossil Group acquired worldwide Zodiac rights on Oct 1, 2001 for roughly $4.7M. Manufacturing/watchmaking today is centered in Biel/Bienne, Switzerland. Marketed as a heritage-driven, dive-watch-focused Swiss maker, with heavy emphasis on reissues of 1950s-70s designs (Super Sea Wolf, Sea Dragon, Astrographic, Aerospace GMT, Sea-Chron, Ref. 691). Note: parent Fossil Group filed Chapter 15 bankruptcy in Oct 2025; the exact status of the Zodiac brand post-filing was not fully confirmed during this research (Jul 2026) — marked active based on the still-live zodiacwatches.com storefront.

Models

Aerospace GMT 2 references
Astrographic 2 references
Olympos 2 references
Ref. 691 2 references
Sea Dragon 2 references
Sea Wolf 2 references
Sea-Chron 1 references
Super Sea Wolf 6 references