Origin of Stepped Bezels/Cases?

My theory is that stepped bezels and stepped watch case designs have an origin in the Art Deco movement of the 1930s.

Art Deco designs were influenced by the modern art movements of that time period such as Cubism, which used angular, fragmented shapes to convey an image. That angularity was widely used in Art Deco themes; architecture in that style is geometric, and Art Deco skyscrapers often featured a stepped pyramid form known as a "ziggurat." Art Deco-inspired furniture pieces and tableware were also stepped in form:




Images above sourced from - http://www.idcn.jp/en/archives/custom_column/ziggurat

I am unsure who produced the first stepped case designs, but I see many stepped case designs in the early (1920s and 30s) tanks of US watch manufacturers such as Hamilton:



(thanks)

This design influence must have had an impact on Swiss case designers. Longines cases from that era are well known for their stepped bezels as seen in this image provided by @bubba48 :

Actually, the genesis has been traced to a particular German woman who engaged in the world's oldest profession during the early 20th century. She had a regular client who was a jeweler, and one Christmas he gave her a watch with a custom case that he had created. The woman was delighted with the gift, and asked about the bezel design, to which he responded (in German, of course): "It's a schtupped bezel.".

Well, as you can imagine, that description didn't go ever well with her friends, so one of them kindly suggested that she must have misunderstood, and that it was, in fact, a stepped bezel.

For those of you who may be skeptical of this claim, I refer you to my source, who is best known as "whole cloth".

😁

In case some future collector finds this thread, I'm cross-referencing @Syrte's thread with details on Longines' step bezel cases.
https://omegaforums.net/threads/the-real-name-of-the-tre-tacche-flat-step-bezel.106829/