Growing up in Hölstein, Portmann saw the changes firsthand – his father was Oris' sales manager from link 1923 to the 1970s. But afraid that the country's key industry would overextend and jeopardize the economy, Swiss officials passed a statute on March 12, 1934 preventing individual watch companies from introducing new technologies. If you only made cases in steel, you couldn't make them in gold. If you didn't already make dials, jewels, or pinions, you never could.