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Aquastar was founded in 1962 in the city of Geneva in Switzerland by Mr. Frédéric Robert.  Mr. Robert, a diver, a sailor, a pilot, a watchmaker, a mathematician. He also represented Switzerland at the 1948 yachting world championship.

With extensive experience on the high seas, Robert set out to start a watch company that focused on developing watches, watch parts, and specialized instruments exclusively for underwater activities, ranging from sport diving to professional scientific excursions and underwater exploration, with the ultimate goal of making all diving exploits safer. It was November 1962 when Robert renamed his father’s company JeanRichard™ to “Aquastar,” and it was here, where an entirely new underwater legacy was born. 

Aquastar marked the first time in the Swiss watchmaking world where a company was dedicated to producing professional-grade watches and timing instruments in a single market segment. And with a catalog that quickly grew to introduce dive watches and other aquatic tools like dive compasses, depth gauges, and thermometers – all of which could be fitted onto watch straps, The path Aquastar has taken was soon to became a unique mission at the time for a Swiss horology Maison.

It was during this time that Mr. F. Robert distributed his range of diving instruments under the new name “Aquastar” almost exclusively through specialized stores instead of regular retailers. Given the socioeconomic environment of the times, this non-traditional sales tactic seemed risky at first, but it reflected Robert’s innovative approach to problem solving – a trait that would reflect in his many patented designs, as well as the backbone that would define the brand’s unique legacy many years later.

In the picture below you see one of the first timepieces created by F. Robert in 1958, a water-resistant watch with a stop watch function, the “AQUASTART”