The Blancpain Ladybird Legacy Exhibition
The Ladybird Legacy is the first exhibition to trace the role and influence of women in the history of Blancpain. Through a selection of vintage Ladybird watches and more, it brings together exceptional pieces created by Blancpain, including watches, precious objects and accessories.
A Woman of Consequence
Berthe-Marie “Betty” Fiechter was born in Villeret in 1896, into a modest family closely connected to watchmaking. She joined Blancpain as a teenager and quickly became indispensable to the seventh-generation family member owner, Frédéric-Emile Blancpain. Over time she was given responsibility for the workshop operations and commercial management. She was not an heiress: the place she would eventually occupy at the head of Blancpain was one she built for herself.
When Frédéric-Emile died in 1932, Betty and the sales director, André Léal, took the audacious decision in the midst of the Great Depression to borrow heavily to acquire the company. In 1933, she became its co-owner. After Léal’s sudden death in 1939, she found herself alone at its head, guiding Blancpain through the Second World War. Her rise and business leadership all the more remarkable as this was more than three decades before Swiss women obtained the federal right to vote in 1971.
Above all, she understood the creative potential of women’s watchmaking. Under her leadership, miniature mechanical movements became a Blancpain speciality. Making them smaller was not only a technical achievement: it gave designers greater freedom to experiment with jewelry, materials and form, turning miniaturisation into a new territory for creativity.
When she retired in 1968, she left behind far more than a successful company. She had helped shape a culture of mechanical ingenuity, independence and creative freedom that would become central to Blancpain’s identity.
Everything begins with something tiny
In 1956, Blancpain unveiled the first Ladybird watch. Inside its spherical case was an extraordinary feat: the smallest round mechanical movement in the history of watchmaking. Behind its diminutive proportions lay extensive research and an
unwavering belief that a woman’s watch deserved the same mechanical ambition as those for men. Blancpain is devoted to grand mechanical watchmaking tradition and has never produced a quartz watch in its history.
R52/R55, The World's Smallest Round Movement
Blancpain's ambition behind the 1956 Ladybird Bullet was bold: not only to create the world's smallest round mechanical movement but one that would be robust. The result was a triumph of miniaturization. With a diameter of just 11.85 millimeters, the original Ladybird caliber –thanks to two key innovations– combined record breaking smallness with sturdiness.
The first was the addition of a fifth wheel to the gear train. A conventional mechanical movement has four, from the barrel to the seconds wheel. Fiechter's solution was to add an additional one, controlling the force reaching the escapement and reducing the caliber's overall dimensions. The second was the inclusion of shock protection for the balance wheel—an element that most very small movements omitted, to their detriment in durability. Blancpain found a way to adapt these protections to the micro-dimensions of the Ladybird caliber, producing a movement that was both remarkably small—barely the size of a fingertip—and, unlike other small calibers of the time, genuinely robust.
The R52/R55 is still to this day the world's smallest round mechanical movement ever massproduced.
At its launch, Blancpain presented the Ladybird as a "technical miracle." Unveiled at the 1956 Swiss Industries Fair in Basel, it was described as combining "all the precision and reliability of a normal-sized watch" within an unprecedentedly small volume.
Internally nicknamed the bullet, the original Ladybird was remarkably restrained: spherical, pure and almost devoid of ornament. Its tiny mechanical heart would soon give designers extraordinary freedom, allowing time to migrate into bracelets, jewellery, rings and other unexpected forms.
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Nearly thirty of these historic creations, exceptionally preserved in Blancpain’s archives, will be brought together for the first time in a travelling exhibition dedicated to the world of Ladybird. In 2026, the exhibition will travel to Blancpain New York City (14–20 September), Blancpain Shanghai Xitiandi (17 – 27 September), Blancpain Paris – Faubourg Saint-Honoré (8–23 October), Omotesando Standby Gallery in Tokyo (17–25 October), and Youthquake in Seoul (11–15 November). Further stops will follow in 2027.
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