This September the list of finalists for this year's competition was presented.Geneva Grand Prix of Watchmaking (GPHG) 2018which will take place at the beginning of November, you can see it on their website. Once again, there are glaring absences, although we cannot forget that here whoever wants to appear and the jury chooses exclusively from among those presented.
Twelve categories, some of which are changing names to try to become more intelligible. Thus, what last year was “Tourbillon and Escapement” this year is “Chronometry”, but in any case it is required to have a special tourbillon or escapement to help with precision. Ladies' and men's watches with their corresponding complications and some others that are difficult to explain: “petite aiguille” is for watches priced between 4,000 and 10,000 Swiss francs (without any other requirements) and “challenge” (challenge) for “cheap” watches with prices (always sold to the public) below 4,000 francs…
I was talking about absences, and it is obvious that some “prime donne” like Rolex or Patek Philippe are missing, but also the entire Swatch Group (let's see if they are going to go underground: first they leave Baselworld 2019 and now this...) and practically the entire Richemont group with the exception of Montblanc, Piaget or Vacheron Constantin. Oops, sorry: Longines participates in the Challenge section. Who does not miss it is the other group in contention: LVMH is present with all its brands, from TAG-Heuer to Zenith through Bulgari or Chaumet (yes, it is also theirs). Curiously, Hublot is missing from a contest that surely had a place for it.
Much more attractive (it is subjective, of course) is the list of independents presented. And not only because of Moser (who seems to have calmed down his hooligan side), Voutilainen (always excellent) or Czapek (who already knows how to win here), but because he brings to light such interesting names as David Candaux (https://www.dcandaux.ch/) or Rexhep Rexhepi with his Akrivia brand (https://www.akrivia.com/) founded in 2012. Also pay attention to the Ming brand (https://ming.watch/) recently created.
The jury has a cast of personalities that is a bit impressive: starting with the president: Aurel Bacs, the owner and lord of the most dazzling watch auctions (it was he who auctioned off Paul Newman's Daytona for more than seventeen million Swiss francs). There is also the most respected living watchmaker of the moment, Philippe Dufour or some of the most influential editors: Jack Forster (editor-in-chief of Hodinkee), Elizabeth Doerr (co-founder and editor-in-chief at Quill and Pad and contributor to Forbes, among many others), Carlos Alonso of Tiempo de Relojes or Phiippe Maillard of the ubiquitous Europa Star. The list is long, and includes collectors and historians of watchmaking. This year we also find Karl-Friedrich Scheufele, CEO of Chopard, winner of the Aiguille d'Or in 2017 and who for this reason cannot participate in this year's competition (but has a seat at the jury table).
Who knows, maybe in a few years they will have Special Watches (ironic mode off).
The 2018 Grand Prix de Horlogerie de Genève (GPHG) awards will be presented in Geneva on November 9, but before that there will be a traveling exhibition that will take the finalist watches to Venice, Hong Kong, Singapore and Geneva itself.
Shall we make a prediction of winners?
