Originally established in 1988 by Dutch married couple Peter Stas and Aletta Stas-Bax,[1] it was acquired in 2016 by Citizen Holdings of Tokyo, Japan.

[6][5] The name originates from its founders great-grandparents, Frédérique Schreiner (1881–1969) and Constant Stas (1880–1967), the latter of whom founded a company producing watch dials in 1904.

[5] The same year, the Frederique Constant Group acquired its main distributors, including its largest market, Macher SA in Switzerland, founded in 2002 by Alexis Gouten.

[11][12] Prior to the sale to Citizen, Frederique Constant Holding SA owned Union Horlogère Holding B.V., which also owned Alpina Watches International SA, a watch manufacture founded in 1883 by Gottlieb Hauser, a watchmaker in Winterthur who founded the Swiss Watchmakers Corporation ("Union Horlogère Suisse").

[15] In February 2007, Frederique Constant began production of the Silicon escapement wheel (first introduced to the industry by Patek Philippe in 2005).

Etched into tiny skeletal structures that would be impossible to form with metal, it becomes the featherweight heart of a mechanism that can run at a far higher accuracy.

[18][19] In April 2008, Frederique Constant created a tourbillon with a silicon escape-wheel and, for the first time, an amplitude of over 300 degrees between its vertical and horizontal positions.

The addition of the second-generation manufacture movements (FC-900) makes the company unusual in offering a complete in-house watch for under €2,000 MSRP.

[31][32] The lack of a display screen also provides significant power saving – enabling a battery life of two years or more, in contrast to other smartwatches that must be charged daily.