The Grand Prix de l'Horlogerie de Geneve - the world's finest watches recognized
About Grand Prix de l'Horlogerie de Genève
With this premier event on the international watchmaking calendar now in its eleventh year, even being recognized in the preselection prior to the nomination of the final three in each category is an incredible honor in this world of mechanical mastery. In the months preceding the awards ceremony, the watches nominated by the jury were exhibited in Zurich, Hong Kong, Shanghai and Geneva.
All the prize-winning and nominated watches will now go on show at the Salon International de l'Horlogerie de Prestige Belles Montres, which will be held at the Carrousel du Louvre in Paris from November 24 to 27.
All the prize-winning and nominated watches will now go on show at the Salon International de l'Horlogerie de Prestige Belles Montres, which will be held at the Carrousel du Louvre in Paris from November 24 to 27.
This year's Laureates of the Grand Prix de l'Horlogerie de Genève are:
1. "Aiguille d'Or" Grand Prix: De Bethune DB28
The DB28 is exceptionally light, with its case made entirely of titanium. The moon's phases are displayed by means of a platinum and blued steel sphere revolving on its axis and are accurate to one day every 122 years.The DB28 is powered by Calibre DB 2009 mechanical hand‐wound movement which is equipped with an ultralight 0.18 gram silicon/titanium tourbillon. This tourbillon is the lightest on the market (classic counterparts often weigh four times as much) and comprises 50 parts, of which the lightest weighs less than 0.0001 grams and the "heaviest" 0.0276 grams!
2. Best Ladies' Watch Prize: Boucheron Crazy Jungle Hathi
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| Boucheron Crazy Jungle Hathi |
The winning womens watch in this year's Grand Prix de l'Horlogerie de Genève, the US$80,000 Boucheron Crazy Jungle Hathi, reflects the Indian influence, with the name a derivative of the Hindi word for elephant and the dial featuring a Murano aventurine glass mosaic set with 40 diamonds, plus sapphires, tsavorites, amethysts and onyx.
The subject is quite obviously an elephant, the casing and bezel are of white gold with an automatic Manufacture GP4000 caliber, and the blanket on the elephant's back contains Boucheron's "Crazy Seconds" module, which is a spinning array of lights.
The subject is quite obviously an elephant, the casing and bezel are of white gold with an automatic Manufacture GP4000 caliber, and the blanket on the elephant's back contains Boucheron's "Crazy Seconds" module, which is a spinning array of lights.
3. Best Men's Watch Prize: Hermès Arceau Le Temps Suspendu
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| Hermès Arceau Le Temps Suspendu |
Hermès' Arceau Le Temps suspendu is a new take on the 33-year-old Arceau design and an interesting concept, in that the owner can "suspend time" by pressing on the pusher, at which point the sweep of the seconds, minutes and hours are suspended and the date indicator disappears.
At another press of the pusher, the watch resumes at the exact time, down to the second, having continued to monitor time in the background. The remarkable thing about this functionality is not so much the usefulness, but the fact the whole illusion is achieved mechanically with an ingenious system of cams, pinions and segments.
At another press of the pusher, the watch resumes at the exact time, down to the second, having continued to monitor time in the background. The remarkable thing about this functionality is not so much the usefulness, but the fact the whole illusion is achieved mechanically with an ingenious system of cams, pinions and segments.
5. Best Design Watch Prize: Urwerk UR-110
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| Urwerk UR-110 |
Twin turbines, "Oil Change" indicator ... URWERK's description of its latest creation sounds like it should be driven, not worn on the wrist. The UR-110 continues the Swiss timepiece innovator's trend of producing off-beat displays - the time is shown by three rotating "torpedoes" mounted on planetary gears that pass down a vertical line, marked 0 to 60 minutes, on the side of the face.
Sound complicated? It's actually quite a simple to read layout and because the time can be read by looking at only the right side, you can discretely sneak a peak at your titanium masterpiece without upsetting those tiresome dinner guests.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Sound complicated? It's actually quite a simple to read layout and because the time can be read by looking at only the right side, you can discretely sneak a peak at your titanium masterpiece without upsetting those tiresome dinner guests.
6.Best Jewellery and Artistic Crafts Watch Prize: Van Cleef & Arpels Lady Arpels Polar Landscape
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| Van Cleef & Arpels Lady Arpels |
The Lady Arpels Polar Landscape Seal decor timepiece depicts seals drying themselves in the sun. Each watch is a work of numerous craftsmen, from machinists to engravers to enamelers to stone cutters. The water is translucent enamel, the skies are turquoise enamel, the waves and clouds are mother-of-pearl, the seals are made of diamonds and the dial is enameled, engraved gold. Each watch costs US$106,300
7. Best Complicated Watch Prize: Zenith Academy Christophe Colomb Equation of Time
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| Zenith Academy Christophe Colomb Equation of Time |
At CHF 220,000.00 (US$240,000), you might rightfully ask what makes this watch so special, even before it had taken the prize for the most complicated watch of the year.
The reason this watch is SO complex is that the 24 hour day is a convenient average because the Earth's elliptical orbit and the inclination of its axis actually vary the length of the day by up to a quarter hour depending on the day of the year. This watch calculates all that and tells you how many minutes you should add or subtract from the time to get the real time. This will probably never be of any practical usage, and almost certainly not anywhere you'll actually be wearing a quarter of a million dollars on your wrist, but heh, you will feel good knowing that the mechanical computer on your wrist is as fine as any going around, and that only 74 other people on the planet will have one.
8. Best Sports Watch Prize: TAG Heuer Mikrotimer Flying 1000 Chronograph
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| TAG Heuer Mikrotimer Flying 1000 Chronograph |
In a world where the capabilities of a watch in terms of genuine usefulness beyond telling the time and are really only of conversational value, the TAG Heuer Mikrotimer Flying 1000 Chronograph would have been a certainty with the bookmakers for the Best Sports Watch Award.
The Mikrotimer Flying 1000 Chronograph's claim to fame is that it is the first and only mechanical chronograph to measure and display time to one thousandth of a second. Its oscillating system vibrates at 3,600,000 beats per hour, 125 times faster then most existing chronographs.
9. "Petite Aiguille" Prize (for models under CHF 5'000): Montblanc, Star Worldtime GMT Automatic
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| Montblanc, Star Worldtime GMT Automatic |
The winner of the Petit Aiguille Award, and quite possibly the most relevant watch of all the winners in that it was judged the best watch under CHF 5000, is the Montblanc Star Worldtime GMT Automatic.
Apart from being more affordable than most of the watches in this array of watchmaking mastery, it's capabilities are also quite possibly the most relevant to a world quickly overcoming the tyranny of distance - put simply, the Montblanc Star Worldtime GMT Automatic puts two different time zones on its dial and at the same time, indicates the time in all time zones.
Apart from being more affordable than most of the watches in this array of watchmaking mastery, it's capabilities are also quite possibly the most relevant to a world quickly overcoming the tyranny of distance - put simply, the Montblanc Star Worldtime GMT Automatic puts two different time zones on its dial and at the same time, indicates the time in all time zones.
10. Public Prize: Audemars Piguet, Millenary 4101
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| Audemars Piguet, Millenary 4101 |
Each year, the public is asked to vote on the 70 watches pre-selected by the jury, with one vote per person allowed to visitors to the Geneva exhibition and internet users who visited the official Grand Prix de l'Horlogerie de Genève web site or World Tempus web site. This year Audemars Piguet's Millenary 4101 took the public prize.
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