All the winners from Grand Prix d’Horologerie de Geneve, the Oscars of watchmaking

Since 2001, the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Geneve (GPHG) has been annually awarding the watchmaking industry’s greatest talents and contributions that cover artistry, design, and technical innovation. This year, 146 brands submitted 273 timepieces, with only 20 earning top honours across various categories. Here are the winning watches announced on Nov 13, 2024 at the Theatre du Leman in Geneva.

MEN’S WATCH: VOUTILAINEN KV20I REVERSED

Displaying the back of a movement on the front of a dial isn’t as simple as flipping it over and casing it. Additional gears and tinkering are required to drive the hands in the “opposite” direction while maintaining the crown’s position on the right — which is why not a lot of watchmakers bother.

That’s why we’re thrilled to see Kari Voutilainen’s efforts rewarded this year for his KV20i Reversed. This time-only watch showcases an inverted movement, offering a stunning view of the oversized free-sprung balance wheel on the dial side. Hours and minutes are also displayed up front, while the small seconds are placed on the case back. As a streamlined successor to the discontinued 28Ti, it’s powered by the hand-wound KV20i movement, boasting hand-decorated German silver bridges and a beautifully finished main plate.

MEN’S COMPLICATION: DE BETHUNE DB KIND OF GRANDE COMPLICATION

De Bethune has always had a bit of a split personality in terms of styling, with space-age aesthetics sitting happily alongside timeless classics. But what all its watches have in common are technical finesse and a frequent obsession with the colour blue. The DB Kind of Grande Complication brings all these elements together and cranks them up to 11.

The double-sided watch features eight complications across two dials. The classic side features a perpetual calendar, a 3D moon phase, time display, and a miniature Milky Way adorned with white gold and 24K gold-leaf stars. Flip it over, and the futuristic side showcases a 30-second tourbillon, retrograde age of the moon, end-of-power reserve indicator, and another time display.

LADIES’ WATCH: VAN CLEEF & ARPELS LADY JOUR NUIT

The fact that the Lady Jour Nuit won the Ladies’ Watch prize despite its concept and design originating in 2008 underscores Van Cleef & Arpels’ peerless ability to express time poetically. The mechanics are straightforward — a 24-hour disc carries the celestial bodies around the dial — but it is the exquisite gem-setting of the sun, moon, and stars, the shimmer of the aventurine dials, and the delicacy of the guilloche horizon that makes this a breathtaking example of feminine horology.

LADIES’ COMPLICATION: VAN CLEEF & ARPELS LADY ARPELS BRISE D’ETE

The Lady Jour Nuit offers a gradual depiction of the sky’s passage, but for something more dynamic, consider Van Cleef & Arpels’ Lady Arpels Brise d’ete, meaning “summer breeze” in French. Its blue and yellow plique-a-jour enamel butterflies serve as hour and minute indicators, while a pusher at 8 o’clock brings the dial to life, sending the butterflies flitting around the dial as three flowers gently sway in an invisible wind.

TIME ONLY: H. MOSER & CIE STREAMLINER SMALL SECONDS BLUE ENAMEL

When all you’ve got to show is the time, everything else around it has to impress. H. Moser achieved this with an absolute stunner of a dial that combines its signature gradient effect with a striking texture. Crafted using the Grand Feu enamelling technique, the “Aqua Blue” dial required 12 firings and three different pigments to achieve its vibrant hue, while the engraved pattern evokes the look of rippling water. The small seconds subdial echoes the colour scheme but features a circular pattern. Housed in a 39mm steel case, the watch is powered by the new automatic HMC 500 movement with a micro-rotor.

ICONIC WATCH: PIAGET POLO 79

As though laughing in the face of sluggish economic times, several watchmakers released full gold tickers this year, but perhaps the most exciting release was a nod to the one that started it all in 1979. The original Piaget Polo was designed to be as much a piece of jewellery as a timepiece, featuring a case, dial, and integrated bracelet all crafted from yellow gold. It made an extravagant return this year in the form of the larger and thicker Polo 79, featuring Piaget’s ultra-thin micro-rotor calibre 1200P1 and almost 200g of 18K yellow gold habillage.

TOURBILLON: DANIEL ROTH TOURBILLON SOUSCRIPTION

In 2000, Bvlgari acquired the Daniel Roth brand, sparking hopes of reviving the legendary independent watchmaker from the 1980s. But after a handful of co-branded releases under Bvlgari, it fell to the wayside. But 2023 saw a second revival of the brand, this time with a design that stayed loyal to the original. The Tourbillon Souscription bears the distinctive double-ellipse case that Daniel Roth is known for, alongside a Clous de Paris guilloche dial made by Kari Voutilainen, and a shaped movement featuring a tourbillon — a rare sight in watchmaking.

The movement, created specifically for this watch by LVMH-owned La Fabrique du Temps, allows the seconds to be read from a three-armed hand mounted on the tourbillon. Each arm corresponds to the varying heights of the three seconds scales, adding a unique dimension to this already exceptional timepiece.

CALENDAR AND ASTRONOMY: LAURENT FERRIER CLASSIC MOON SILVER

Champions of quiet luxury don’t come more low-key than Laurent Ferrier. Many of his watches are so understated, it’s as if they don’t even want to be noticed, save for by their wearers and the GPHG committee (this year marks Ferrier’s fourth win at the awards). However, the brand’s first moon phase watch certainly asks for — and rightly deserves — a second look.

The double moon display features a Murano aventurine glass base, engraved and hand-painted to perfection. The moon and stars are filled with Super-Luminova, then fired, with the moon’s craters intricately engraved by hand. Translucent petrol blue enamel discs are placed atop the scene, indicating the phases of the moon.

The hand-wound LF126.02 is essentially an updated version of the LF126.1 annual calendar movement, but with an added moon phase complication. Like all Laurent Ferrier movements, this one is beautifully finished with Geneva stripes, circular graining, bevelling and polishing.

MECHANICAL EXCEPTION: BOVET 1822 RECITAL 28 PROWESS 1

The Mechanical Exception category is reserved for watches with a special mechanism or display that showcases an original or exceptional horological concept. And we’ll argue that being the first to solve the problem of Daylight Savings Time (DST) in a worldtimer certainly qualifies as an exceptional achievement.

Mechanical watches typically can’t account for DST because they operate on a fixed, continuous timekeeping system, which doesn’t allow for dynamic adjustments to non-standardised time shifts. Bovet tackled this challenge by using 24 rollers (one for each city in the worldtimer), each with four positions that can be switched instantly by pressing the crown. These positions account for UTC, AST (American Summer Time), EAS (Europe and America Summer Time), and EWT (European Winter Time). With a single press, all the rollers rotate and adjust themselves to the desired time zone.

CHRONOGRAPH: MASSENA LAB CHRONOGRAPH MONOPOUSSOIR SYLVAIN PINAUD X MASSENA LAB

In 2019, independent watchmaker Sylvain Pinaud claimed the top horology prize at the prestigious Un des Meilleurs Ouvriers de France competition, a national contest that honours mastery in various crafts, from culinary arts to woodworking. The 2019 edition challenged contestants to create a mono-pusher chronograph under highly specific conditions, covering everything from decoration to the diameter of the column wheel. After Pinaud’s win, a production version followed, earning him the Revelation Watch prize at the 2022 GPHG.

Now, Pinaud has won again in the chronograph category, this time through a collaboration with design studio Massena Lab. What was originally intended as a one-off piece — with Massena’s request for a custom case for the Chronograph Monopoussoir — evolved into a small series, driven by high demand from Massena’s circle of friends.

SPORTS: MING 37.09 BLUEFIN

Malaysian brand Ming has applied its distinctive design language to a dive watch for the first time in four years, offering a design-forward take on the typically burly tool watch. The 37.09 Bluefin features a sleek 38mm case and forgoes the traditional rotating bezel in favour of an inner rotating dial. The diving scale and hands are generously treated with lume, ensuring excellent legibility in dark depths, and the watch is water-resistant to 600m.

JEWELLERY: CHOPARD LAGUNA HIGH-JEWELLERY SECRET WATCH

Chopard’s one-of-a-kind cuff watch from this year’s Red Carpet collection is an oceanic odyssey, brought to life by the whimsical vision of Caroline Scheufele. The actual timepiece is hidden under a seashell, with a medley of coloured sapphires glittering around the dial and a natural pearl concealing the hinge. The cuff itself is blanketed in emeralds, diamonds, as well as purple, Demantoid, and mandarin garnets set in ethical 18K white gold, pink gold, and titanium. This masterpiece required over 1,000 hours to create.

ARTISTIC CRAFTS: VAN CLEEF & ARPELS LADY ARPELS JOUR ENCHANTE

Van Cleef & Arpels never misses a chance to show off its mastery of metiers d’art, and the Lady Arpels Jour Enchante is no exception. In an 18K white gold case just 41mm wide, the watch captures a vivid scene of a fairy picking flowers beneath the radiant morning sun. To bring the blossoms to life, the maison developed a new technique called faconne enamel, allowing delicate enamel to be sculpted like glass for a three-dimensional effect. The rest of the dial is adorned with intricate plique-a-jour enamel, while precious stones embellish the leaves. The dial alone took two years to develop and 180 hours to assemble.

PETITE AIGUILLE: KUDOKE 3 SALMON

German watchmaker Stefan Kudoke established the Handwerk collection as a minimalist counterpoint to his elaborate and artistic Kunstwerk series, with the Kudoke 3 as its third addition. Falling within the Petite Aiguille category — reserved for watches priced between CHF 2,000 (US$2,253; S$3,000) and CHF 8,000 — the Kudoke 3 offers exceptional value, featuring a hand-finished movement with three finishing options. The dial layout is delightfully unconventional, with three hour hands that take turns indicating the time on a fan-shaped display, each completing a scale over four hours. A charming detail: the hours don’t follow a chronological order. Instead, the top scale arranges the numerals just as you’d find on a traditional dial.

CHALLENGE: OTSUKA LOTEC NO. 6

Otsuka Lotec watches are frustratingly difficult to acquire, and this win is unlikely to make that any easier. Still, founder and watchmaker Jiro Katayama deserves full credit for creating a timepiece with so much character while priced under CHF 3,000 — which is precisely what the Challenge category celebrates. However, if you want to add this steampunk-inspired watch to your collection, be prepared to enter a raffle (held every few months), pay with a credit card issued by a Japanese bank, and have it delivered to a Japanese address. Good luck!

ECO-INNOVATION: CHOPARD L.U.C QUALITE FLEURIER

This new category, which honours sustainability efforts in watchmaking, unsurprisingly goes to Chopard — a brand that has long championed ethical gold and recycled materials. The winning reference is the first L.U.C Qualite Fleurier in steel, crafted from Chopard’s proprietary Lucent Steel. This innovative alloy is made of 80 per cent recycled materials and boasts greater resistance and luminosity than regular stainless steel.

AUDACITY: BERNERON MIRAGE SIENNA

The Audacity Prize recognises those with a non-conformist approach to watchmaking, and this year, it goes to Sylvain Berneron, creative director at Breitling, for his unconventional Sienna watch. Launched last year as an exercise in defiance, the Sienna stands out in several ways.

First, the movement was designed before the case, driven by a desire to “let the mechanics go freely”, which resulted in its unique shape. Second, the Calibre 233, developed by Le Cercle de Horlogers, is made from gold instead of the usual brass — a rarity in watchmaking, with F.P. Journe being one of the few to employ this method. Finally, the hour hand is mounted above the minute hand, flipping the traditional layout. This clever design choice reduces the clearance between the hand and the sapphire crystal, allowing for a slimmer overall case of just 4.9mm.

CHRONOMETRY: BERNHARD LEDERER 3 TIMES CERTIFIED OBSERVATORY CHRONOMETER

Even without the GPHG win, the watch’s name itself signals how seriously it took its chronometric pursuits. Certified by three prestigious observatories — Besancon in France, Glashutte in Germany, and the Observatoire Chronometrique in Geneva, Switzerland — this model marks Bernhard Lederer’s second GPHG victory, following his Central Impulse Chronometer, which won the 2021 Innovation prize. The richly decorated Calibre 9012 is equipped with Lederer’s patented chronometer escapement, featuring two independent barrels, gear trains, and escape wheels, as well as two constant-force mechanisms.

HOROLOGICAL REVELATION: REMY COOLS TOURBILLON ATELIER

This category celebrates young brands or talents whose first model was launched less than 10 years ago, and the 2024 award goes to 26-year-old Remy Cools and his Tourbillon Atelier. His first commercially available watch, the Tourbillon Souscription, debuted in 2020, and the Tourbillon Atelier follows as a clear demonstration of his growth. The new watch is smaller and thinner (39mm by 12mm compared to the Souscription’s 40mm by 15mm), crafted in platinum instead of steel, and offers a full view of the movement.

AIGUILLE D’OR: IWC PORTUGIESER ETERNAL CALENDAR

To win the GPHG’s ultimate prize, one must boldly challenge the boundaries laid down by horological traditions and summarily shatter them. Previous winners in recent years have included the exceptionally complex Audemars Piguet Code 11.59 Ultra-Complication Universelle RD#4, the highly original MB&F Legacy Sequential EVO chronograph, and the Bvlgari Octo Finissimo Perpetual Calendar — the world’s thinnest perpetual calendar.

For 2024, that trailblazer is IWC with its mind-bending Portugieser Eternal Calendar, possibly the most advanced calendar watch ever made. This watch features a secular calendar — an incredibly rare type of perpetual calendar that accounts for irregularities like non-leap years that occur every 400 years. As a result, it will not need an adjustment until the year 3999. IWC achieved this by designing a 400-year gear that accounts for skipping three leap years every four centuries. Additionally, the Eternal Calendar now boasts the world’s most accurate moon phase, deviating by just one day after 45 million years, surpassing the previous record holder, Andreas Strehler’s Lune Perpetuelle 2M, which was accurate to “just” 2 million years.