Family-owned; founded in Geneva in 1988 by Peter C. Stas and Aletta F.F. Stas-Bax. “Geneva precision watches with a contemporary classic design reflecting a passionate drive to succeed”. The company has had a consistent and healthy average growth rate of 25-30% over the last ten years and is currently building a brand new “manufacture” in Plan-les-Ouates Geneva. Frédérique Constant has developed numerous limited edition complicated wristwatches in the past including its “Heart Beat” Day-Date Retrograde and Tourbillon models. At Baselworld 2004 Frédérique Constant unveiled its first manufacture caliber the hand wound FC-910 with its signature “open heart” (visible escapement) at 6 o’clock. The “Heart Beat” Manufacture caliber is a completely new movement with a number of specific patented features. Its “Heart Beat” opening is perfectly centered at 6 o’clock with the fine regulation at the side of the dial creating a technically new appealing and robust caliber design. The “Heart Beat” Manufacture caliber was developed by Frédérique Constant in cooperation with the École d’Horlogerie de Genève the École d’Ingénieurs de Genève and the Horloge Vakschool Zadkine in the Netherlands. Fourteen of the finest specialists of mechanical watch components were carefully selected for the production of components for this new movement. The “Heart Beat” Manufacture with Moon Phase and Date is a new variation of the FC-910 base caliber. The moon inside a window at 12 o’clock on the dial of this new model progresses through its various phases against the background of a night-blue sky; the aperture is bordered by the 31 numbers of the hand-type date display exactly the way this type of indicator was arranged on classic complicated timepieces from the 1940s and 1950s.