THE HISTORY OF EUROPA STAR
Europa Star Cover (1959)
Watch media, like social media in general, might seem like it’s only been around since the early 2000s, but the truth is magazines like Europa Star have existed for almost a century.
The story of Europa Star starts with the son of an innkeeper named Huge Buchser, born in 1896. Buchser’s father died when he was a young adult and for a number of reasons he and his siblings were left in a bad shape. Buchser was driven by this occurrence and motivated to be an entrepreneur. So, he went to India, where he sold watches and other trinkets, and continued traveling after a year in India to places like Egypt. Upon his return to Switzerland in the early 1920s, he founded a small watch company and began exporting around Europe, eventually growing his business and moving to Geneva. In 1929, in Geneva, he started the ‘Guides des Acheteurs’, a bi-monthly magazine focused on the watch export market, laying the foundation for Europa Star with this endeavour. He subsequently published other magazines like the ‘Bulletin d’informations techniques’ and ‘La Revista Relojera’ in Buenos Aires in 1942. The magazines grew and were soon being distributed worldwide. After WWII, Buchser decided to travel to South America with one of his daughters and published ‘Elegancia e Precisao’ in Brazil. He continued his travels through the Middle East and Asia, where he also left his mark with new publications like ‘Orafrica’.
Part world traveler, part watch writer, Buchser’s efforts founding Europa Star in 1927 paid off; culminating in the consolidation of his various publications into a single entity called the Industrial Documentation Bureau in the 1950s. Hugo Buchser died in 1961, but Europa Star continued to grow under the management of his heirs and the investments from other entities like Miller Freeman. His family is still at the helm of the company, with leader Philippe Maillard having bought back all the outlying shares in 2010.
By: Andres Ibarguen