Rado - Brand Overview - 'The World's First Scratchproof watch'

Rado President Roland Streule said: "We do not want to simply manufacture watches that cater to current tastes. Our watches should have the potential to become classics because of their individualistic form and their scratchproof materials. Or to put it another way, they should be watches that are beautiful and remain beautiful. Watches made from scratchproof materials with an unmistakable design."

In 1957, after four decades as a supplier of watch movements the then Schlup & Co launched its first ever watch collection under the brand name 'Rado.' Just five years later, it launched the oval 'DiaStar,’ the world’s first scratch proof watch.

Rado's head designer at the time Marc Lederrey noticed that gold and steel watches may be beautiful to start with but often showed scratch marks after only a few days and had to be continually re-polished. At the time, types of hard metal made from tungsten and titanium carbides were only known as extremely resistant materials used in the manufacture of tools and specialized high-tech instruments. However, Lederrey was given the go ahead by Rado founder Dr Paul Lüthi to look at these materials and develop a new product. The result was the world's first scratchproof watch!

Later in the ‘90’s, Rado engineers succeeded in transforming carbon into nanocrystalline diamond particles using a leading-edge high-tech process. This enabled the deposition of a homogenous layer of 100% artificially manufactured diamond onto the shaped hardmetal components of the watchcase. The result was a technological quantum leap - absolute hardness and the inalterability of diamond in the Rado 'V10K'.

Rado continues to choose materials such as hardmetal, sapphire crystal, high-tech ceramics, high-tech lanthanum and high-tech diamond to develop more watch styles with the combined functions of being a modern looking piece of jewelry and a functional timepiece.

See Rado watches, just launched at TIME² for current season styles.