The GPHG Iconic category honors models with real staying power, requiring them to have had a lasting influence as a collection for more than 20 years. Our panel doesn’t like the category, but it sure does have a unanimous winner.
Unless you have been residing under a large rock in recent years, you are most probably (and perhaps quite painfully) aware that the classic steel sports watches designed by Gérald Genta for Audemars Piguet (Royal Oak) and Patek Philippe (Nautilus) are both beyond the financial reach of most people and in many cases simply not available even if you can afford them. Here Colin Alexander Smith shares six more affordable and more available sports watches that have caught his eye over the last few years.
On January 24, 2022, two Swiss watch brands, Ulysse Nardin and Girard-Perregaux, were reorganized in response to men’s fashion developments in Rome, Italy. In a vacuum, it is hard to see how one would lead to the other: their connection is the Kering group. And then there’s LVMH, but how does that group fit in here? Professor of economics Brendan Cunningham offers some thoughts on how all of this might just go together.
What a diverse bunch of tourbillons in this Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève category: two of them are beautifully transparent, while one of them is combined with a chronograph. Yet another contains a constant-force device, while one example here can be flipped around. And, finally, the sixth is involved in a space war. Oh, to choose a winner!
Earlier in 2021, Girard-Perregaux surprisingly announced a new partnership with luxury carmaker Aston Martin and quickly released the Tourbillon with Three Flying Bridges Aston Martin in blackened titanium. During Geneva Watch Days, Girard-Perregaux introduced a pink gold variation in celebration of the brand’s 230th anniversary that took Elizabeth Doerr’s breath away with its transparency, technicity, and sheer beauty.
In this non-chronological multipart series called “History of Ferrari Watches,” Elizabeth Doerr takes us through a comprehensive look into the Girard-Perregaux Pour Ferrari collaboration, which took place between 1993 and 2004 and culminated in the Girard-Perregaux Pour Ferrari Tribute to Enzo Ferrari Tourbillon with Three Gold Bridges perpetual calendar chronograph.
The Iconic category emphasizes men’s or women’s watches from a brand’s emblematic collection, meaning one that has had a lasting influence on watchmaking and its history as well as having been on the market for more than 20 years. Our panelists have mixed feelings about the Iconic category and are (nearly) split down the middle on picking a favorite.
Girard-Perregaux plays cleverly off the intense blackness of the onyx dial of the Vintage 1945 Infinity by crafting the logo, hour indexes, and second hand in pink gold. To Martin Green’s eye, the combination of the steel case with the pink and white metal hands creates an interesting dynamic that works very well in combination with the Vintage 1945 Infinity’s art deco design.
Girard-Perregaux’s Bridges Cosmos, a major release from the brand at SIHH 2019, is a magnificent astronomical watch featuring two views of the cosmos and standing as a mechanical love letter to it.
Watches & Wonders 2019 took place at the Miami Design District over the long President’s Day weekend (February 15-17, 2019). Mainly a three-day weekend of luxurious watch browsing for consumers, this event is less geared toward industry and press and more toward connecting with prospective end clients. Here, Elizabeth Doerr highlights three complicated watches that were nonetheless launched during the Miami event.