The first collection of Swatch watches, consisting of twelve models, was presented in 1983 in Zurich, Switzerland. The company wanted to position itself to compete with the onslaught of less expensive Japanese watches such as Seiko, which had almost totally undercut the Swiss market share in the 1960s and '70s. By fully automating the assembly process and reducing the number of parts from more than 90 to 51, Swatch was able to sell their watches about 80 percent cheaper than conventional Swiss watches.

The name Swatch is often considered to be a contraction of 'Swiss watch,' but in fact it was originally intended to be 'second watch.' Their advertising strategy placed them as a fun, casual and relatively inexpensive alternative to the primary dress watch. This approach was wildly successful, and by the mid '80s Swatch was dominating the market.

Swatch now produces dozens of different styles, divided into 'families' and 'subfamilies.' There are conservative styles (though not many), high-tech styles and a wide range of bright, funky styles. Some are capable of downloading data from the Internet and some are automatic, which means they need no battery and are wound by the motion of the wearer's wrist.

Among their top sellers are the rainbow-striped Color the Sky and the pale blue Urban Woman. Fun scuba styles are water resistant to 200 meters and have all the functions of a dive watch, but come in colors that might scare the fish! Swatch has even commissioned artists such as Keith Haring to design their innovative watches.