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In my opinion, there are at least ten watches in the semi-finals that deserve to be in the top five finalists, so I’m going out on a limb here, but given that I think that the prize is likely to go not simply to the ‘best’ watch, but to who it will help the most, my prediction for the five finalists are: Vincent Deprez, Sarauer Horology, Khemea, Simon Brette, and Yosuke Sekiguchi.

Also strongly in the running for me are Theo Auffret, Ondřej Berkus, Felipe Pikullik, John-Mikaël Flaux, and Petermann Bédat.

I’ll stress again that I’m not predicting the finalists just on the quality of their watches, but also in how much the prize is likely to impact their future (fostering creativity and innovation).

If my predictions for the finalists are largely correct, i.e. indicating that the jury also takes into account the impact of the prize and not just the watchmaking itself, I think that future editions of this biennial (every two years) prize might be limited to watches/watchmakers that launched in the previous three to five years, rather than those who are already well established.

In December 2023, the jury will select the five finalists based on Design, Creativity, Innovation, Craftsmanship, and Technical complexity. We will then know more on just what the prize is aiming to do, i.e. how much weight will be giving to rewarding versus fostering independent talent?

For more information, please visit www.louisvuittonwatchprize.com/

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