MISSED CONNECTIONS: What would have happened if Swiss watchmaker Zenith and compatriot USM Modular Furniture had met when they patented their most famous technical innovations in the 1960s?

That’s the question that led to the collaboration that resulted in the Defy Chronograph USM watch unveiled Thursday.

For the watchmaker, that decade saw the development of the El Primero caliber, the first automatic high-frequency chronograph movement, one that came with a full-rotor design giving it 1/10 th -of-a-second precision.

So complex was this undertaking that the project took seven years, launching in 1969 and missing its original plan to launch for the company’s centennial celebration in 1965 — coincidentally the year USM patented the ingenious ball joint that underpins its USM Halle

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