Rado

Rado began in 1917 as Schlup & Co., a movement workshop opened by the brothers Fritz, Ernst and Werner Schlup in Lengnau, in the canton of Bern. The company supplied movements to other watch houses for four decades before adopting the Rado name for its own watches in 1957. Its direction was set in 1962 with the DiaStar, presented as the first scratch-proof watch, with a hard-metal (tungsten carbide) case and sapphire crystal; the Captain Cook dive watch appeared the same year. Rado has since concentrated on hard materials: the Integral of 1986 introduced high-tech ceramic to the range, followed by the all-ceramic Ceramica in 1990 and later by plasma-treated ceramic with a metallic finish.

Rado has been part of the Swatch Group since the group was formed in 1983 and remains based in Lengnau. Current collections include the Captain Cook, reissued in 2017, the True and True Square ceramic lines, the DiaStar Original and the Ceramica.