Column: the 2026 GPHG rewarded the watchmaker's hand

The 2026 GPHG prize-winners on stage at the Bâtiment des Forces Motrices. © GPHG

By Nuno Margalha, director of the Instituto Português de Relojoaria

The Aiguille d'Or went to a hand-wound chronograph, 38.8 mm across, with an enamel dial fired in the watchmaker's own workshop. I do not think that is a coincidence. This year the Grand Prix d'Horlogerie de Genève said clearly what it values: the watchmaker who masters the movement from one end to the other.

The 84 nominated watches produced 20 prizes. Rarely has the palmarès seemed so coherent to me. Almost every prize tells the same story.

Rexhepi and the time a watch takes

Rexhep Rexhepi Chronograph Flyback, with a Grand Feu enamel dial. © GPHG

Rexhep Rexhepi joined Patek Philippe as an apprentice at 15. Now he receives the Aiguille d'Or for his first chronograph, which is also the first complication to bear his name. The calibre was created specifically for this watch. It has 320 components, a column wheel, a horizontal clutch and an instantaneous minute counter. The system that drives it stores energy, releases it at the right moment and locks the hand on the mark.

It is spectacular, but you do not notice it at first sight. Its greatness lies in the clean architecture, the hand finishing and the Grand Feu enamel dial made by the watchmaker himself, the brand's first in series production. There is much talk of crisis in Swiss watchmaking. In a year like this, the highest prize went to a watch that can only be explained with patience.

One gesture is worth noting. Rexhepi received the trophy from Breguet, which won it last year with the Classique Souscription. One of the oldest houses in watchmaking handed the prize to an independent from Geneva. He said afterwards that receiving it from Breguet had a special meaning for him.

The return of the regulating organ

Cleguer Inspiration One, with the Innate escapement and the Breguet hairspring visible at 7.30. © GPHG

What pleased me most in this palmarès lies at the heart of the watches: the escapement and the balance. Three prizes went to people who reworked the regulating organ.

Mathieu Cleguer, a Breton engineer, won the Complication category with his very first watch. He created the escapement himself: two mirrored escape wheels, inspired by Breguet's natural escapement. Dominique Renaud, who founded Renaud & Papi in 1986, won the Revelation prize with a 1 Hz balance that swings beyond 360 degrees. Ferdinand Berthoud took the Chronometry prize with a watch made over six years with historical methods and tools, with almost no digital manufacturing.

Anyone who teaches watchmaking knows that the escapement is the hardest part to explain and the most beautiful to understand. The GPHG rewarded three very different paths: a new escapement, a very low frequency and an almost archaeological method. That tells me research is still alive outside the big laboratories.

The groups are still there

Audemars Piguet Royal Oak "Jumbo" RD#5: a flying tourbillon and a flyback chronograph in an 8.1 mm case. © GPHG

It would be naive to read this GPHG as a victory of the independents over the big houses. Audemars Piguet took two prizes, with the Royal Oak "Jumbo" RD#5 and the 150 Heritage pocket watch, which has 47 functions. Chopard took another two. Ferdinand Berthoud, which works with Chopard's craftsmen, took two more. Louis Vuitton won in Artistic Crafts. It is also behind the Daniel Roth that won the Essential category, whose calibre was developed at La Fabrique du Temps.

In my view, what changed was the criterion. The big houses won with research and craft pieces, and none with a catalogue variant. The RD#5 combines a flying tourbillon and a flyback chronograph in an 8.1 mm case. The 150 Heritage is a pocket watch. Few people will wear them, but they show what a manufacture is capable of.

A prize that is not a watch

Watch Art Grand Exhibition, Milan, 2026. © Patek Philippe

The Special Jury Prize went to Patek Philippe's Watch Art Grand Exhibitions. Since 2012 these exhibitions have visited seven cities, and the Milan edition alone drew 68,000 visitors. It was the only prize of the evening that did not reward a watch.

I agree with the choice. Watchmaking depends on people who know it, admire it and want to learn it. Exhibiting, explaining and training are part of the craft. In Portugal we know well how hard it is to bring the public close to an open movement.

Jury, categories and market

Rexhep Rexhepi with the Aiguille d'Or trophy in Geneva on 7 November. © GPHG

This was the first edition chaired by Wei Koh, founder of Revolution. The jury had 24 members, examined the pieces in hand, and its vote counted for two thirds of the result. It was also the first edition without men's and ladies' categories, which gave way to the Essential and Complication categories. I think the change is right. A watch has a size, a complication and a price; the rest is marketing.

A word of caution, all the same. A GPHG prize recognises watchmaking merit and does not guarantee value on the market. Anyone who buys a watch because it won a prize should buy it for the same reasons that led the jury to reward it.

What Portugal can take from it

Otsuka Lotec No.8, winner of the Petite Aiguille prize. © GPHG

Rexhepi's path began at a workbench, at 15. Mathieu Cleguer spent years designing calibres for other brands. Jiro Katayama won the Petite Aiguille with the Otsuka Lotec No.8, built on a Miyota calibre and a 62-component module he made himself. None of these paths needed a big group to reach Geneva. They needed training, patience and someone who believed in the work.

That is what seems worth keeping in mind. The 84 nominated watches are on show at the Musée d'Art et d'Histoire in Geneva until 15 November, and then travel to London, from 18 to 23 November. If you can, go and see them up close.

Nuno Margalha

Find out more on the organisation's website.