Before the New Year arrives, let’s review this year’s notable timepieces with you. The prestigious winners from the 2024 Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève (GPHG) have gathered together, and Gordon Watch is honored to witness these pinnacles of haute horlogerie alongside discerning collectors.
BOVET The Récital 28 Prowess 1 / Mechanical Exception
Reviewing the nominees for GPHG 2024’s Best Mechanical Construction award revealed a true battle of technical mastery. The BOVET Récital 28 Prowess 1 World Timer emerged victorious by solving a previously unaddressed challenge – it’s the world’s first wristwatch to compensate for daylight saving time, transcending conventional technical boundaries.
Since daylight saving implementation dates vary, BOVET broke free from traditional thinking to create an unprecedented world time system. The central dial features 24 city rollers, each with four positions representing UTC, AST (American Summer Time), EAS (Euro-American Summer Time), and EWT (European Winter Time). The crown allows setting for each time period, ensuring precise time indication regardless of location.
This timepiece combines world time, perpetual calendar, and double-sided flying tourbillon complications with a 10-day power reserve. The 46.3mm Grade 5 titanium case features BOVET’s distinctive “writing slope” design, creating a dynamic viewing perspective. The hand-wound R28-70-007 movement comprises 744 hand-finished components, including inner angles that can only be achieved through pure hand craftsmanship.
IWC Portugieser Eternal Calendar / Aiguille d’Or
The 44.4mm platinum-cased IWC Portugieser Eternal Calendar stands as a gateway to eternity. Its double moonphase display, which deviates by just one day after 4.5 million years, earned Guinness World Record recognition as the “Most Precise Moonphase Display Watch.” Moreover, it claimed GPHG 2024’s highest honor, the Aiguille d’Or. The case’s double-layer box sapphire crystal, sapphire crystal subdials, and novel finishes elevate the Portugieser collection’s classic layout with understated elegance and futuristic appeal.
While perpetual calendars can calculate leap year rules, displaying the 4-year cycle, the eternal calendar goes further by addressing limitations that perpetual calendars cannot solve. This stems from astronomers’ solar calendar leap year rules: years divisible by 4 are leap years, years divisible by 100 are common years, years divisible by 400 are leap years, and years divisible by 4,000 are common years. Most current perpetual calendar watches require no manual adjustment until 2100. The IWC perpetual calendar mechanism, created by watchmaker Kurt Klaus in 1985, needs adjustment only in 2499, while the IWC Eternal Calendar requires no manual adjustment until at least 3999—as officials haven’t yet decided whether 4000 will be a leap year.
H. Moser & Cie. Streamliner Small Seconds Blue Enamel / Time Only
Time Only” is a new category for GPHG 2024, focusing on two or three-hand watches that exemplify complexity within simplicity. The H. Moser & Cie. Streamliner Small Seconds Blue Enamel earned this distinction. This is the first 39mm piece in the Streamliner collection since its 2020 debut, just 1mm smaller than the existing three-hand 40mm model, yet distinctly different inside and out. The steel case’s proportions have been refined for a more streamlined aesthetic while maintaining 120-meter water resistance. It features the new in-house HMC500 automatic movement—with smaller, thinner components and the brand’s first micro-rotor, crafted in solid platinum, offering a 74-hour power reserve.
The “Aqua Blue” grand feu enamel fumé dial is the centerpiece, achieved through complex processes to create its vibrant, lustrous, and dimensional effect. The process begins with hammered texture engraving on a gold base plate, followed by three-tone pigment application and 12 firing cycles to create the signature smoke effect radiating from center to edge, contrasting with the snailed small seconds subdial. True to H. Moser & Cie.’s confident approach, the dial bears no brand logo—the distinctive design alone serves as the brand signature.
Franck Muller Long Island Evolution Triple Jump / Nominated for Best Men’s Complication
This is Franck Muller‘s first timepiece featuring jumping hours, minutes, and instantaneous date. Every minute offers a dynamic jumping display, with the hourly transitions being particularly spectacular as both hour and minute indicators jump simultaneously.
The watch features a bold design and innovative dial layout, building upon the Long Island collection launched in 2020. It introduces a new movement-securing inner case, creating a dual-layer structure of black PVD titanium case with a green anodized aluminum inner ring. The hour, minute, and date displays are vertically aligned at equal distances, offering intuitive readability. The deliberately exposed double minute discs and sapphire crystal markings indicating functions and movement specifications enrich the dial layout, creating an intense visual experience. Given the substantial energy required for instantaneous jumping displays, it employs the new FM 3100 movement with a dual barrel system—the barrel at 6 o’clock drives the date disc, while the one at 12 o’clock powers the minute and hour discs.
Zenith Defy Extreme Diver Chronograph / Nominated for Best Sports Watch
The Zenith Defy Extreme Diver features a striking contrast between its star-pattern blue dial and orange-red inner bezel, showcasing a strong retro-futuristic style. Every detail is purposefully designed for professional diving. With 600-meter water resistance, it holds triple ISO certification: diving (ISO 6425), anti-magnetic (ISO 764), and shock resistance (ISO 1413), plus a helium escape valve at 9 o’clock. The angular 42.5mm brushed titanium case offers lightweight, wear-resistant, and anti-corrosive properties. The blue ceramic rotating bezel features grooved edges for easy manipulation even with gloves. Large hands and raised indices are coated with three different colors of X1 Super-LumiNova, emitting blue, green, and orange lume for clear time reading in dark depths.
The watch comes with a titanium H-link bracelet and two additional straps: a blue FKM rubber strap and an extra-long strap made from recycled fishing nets for wear over diving suits. Through the screw-down caseback, one can admire the El Primero 3620-SC automatic high-frequency movement with Zenith’s signature star-shaped openworked rotor.
Parmigiani Fleurier TORIC Chronographe Rattrapante / Nominated for Best Chronograph
The Parmigiani Fleurier Toric Split-Seconds Chronograph embodies elegance and excellence, exemplifying the essence of watchmaking artistry inside and out. The 2024 revised Toric collection follows the golden ratio principle, with its case incorporating knurled decorations inspired by Greek Doric columns. The gently curved chevé dial features a matte powder finish, while the subdials are presented in recessed circular areas with inlaid rose gold frames. Each detail reflects understated refinement, achieving true timeless elegance through seemingly simple sophistication.
Gold movements are extremely rare in haute horlogerie, and this watch’s PF361-SLIM hand-wound movement is among these precious few, crafted in 18K rose gold with openworked movement lines forming arabesque patterns. Operating at 5 Hz, it features double column wheels for precision to one-tenth of a second. Despite the 42.5mm 18K rose gold case diameter, compact lugs ensure a comfortable fit on the wrist.
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