Luxury wristwatches sit on display in the window of a Louis Vuitton store in Paris. (Photographer: Marlene Awaad/Bloomberg)
(Bloomberg Businessweek) -- Louis Vuitton has been making luxury watches for 19 years, and in Swiss watchmaking terms, that makes it an upstart. The most important timekeeping inventions had been created by the first half of the 19th century by houses in Switzerland. The oldest, Vacheron Constantin, has been in the business since 1755, 100 years before Louis Vuitton made its first trunk.