The indisputable expert in watchmaking Aurel Bacs presides the jury of 25 members including collectors such as Claude Sfeir, journalists such as Nick Foulkes, musician such as Eric Singer or retailers like Michael Tay in order to define which award goes to whom.
Grand Prix de l’horlogerie de Genève (GPHG) or the Oscars of watches. Four feminine pieces were rewarded this year among separate categories. Yet, did they all deserve it ? Was the jury right all the way?
When Hublot first presented the Big Bang Broderie back at Baselworld 15 if not as a sneak peak during SIHH, nobody or maybe not a lot would have imagined that piece to be the GPHG 2015 winner of the Lady’s Watch Category…
Yes it is an interesting piece. Yes it is a limited edition of 200 pieces. Yes it was a genuine idea to collaborate with Bischoff, the leading Swiss Atelier for embroidery. Yes it is another version of the wide Big Bang collection we have never seen yet. But even if Bar Rafaeli (ambassador of the brand since March 2015) wears it to perfection, no, the Big Bang Broderie is not the most feminine watch we have seen this past year to deserve the ultimate reward for the BEST LADY WATCH category… especially considering the pre-selected watches of the category.
“It is funny to see that a men’s watch gets the feminine prize!” starts Jean-Claude Biver, President of the administrative board of the Hublot watches, ex-CEO of the brand who built Hublot’s reputation on the launch of the Big Bang a decade ago. “Without tradition, inovation or creation, there would not be a nation, there would not be watches and unfortunately …there won’t be any future.”
Nevertheless, this time, Biver’s charisma did not quite convince the assembly with his Hublot Broderie…
What an achievement, what a reward !
It isn’t without a humble pride and a non-dissimulated emotion that Aurelie Picaud, Fabergé’s watch director and her CEO Sean Gilberston walked up on stage to get their well deserved prize rewarding the Lady Compliquee Peacok as the best mechanical lady watch selected for the GPHG2015.
The genius watchmaker and concepter from Agenhor – Jean-Marc Wiederrecht only had 15 months to develop this outstanding yet technical and poetic piece for a specific deadline which was basel 2015. Snow-paved with paraiba tourmalines, diamonds and tsavorites, the dial of the Lady Compliquée reflects light and life thanks to the bright hues of the colored stones.
For the anecdote – it all started when eminent journalist Louis Nardin back from his peregrinations in Asia suggested Wiederrecht to – one day- manage to develop a replicate the movement of the fan. He kept the idea at the back of his head up until Faberge reached out to him with a painting of a peacock found in their archives and asked if he could do something with it. There it clicked! He developed a mechanism in which the feathers of the peacock would indicate the time as if it were the arrays of a fan opening one after another. .
Congratulations again to Faberge and the Lady Compliquée peacock for being the GPHG 2015 winner of the high mechanical lady watch.
The Diamond Punk is a piece that should not have existed. Yet, a year after its launch following 2 years of development, the Audemars Piguet High Jewelry Diamond Punk won the GPHG2015 prize for the best jewellery piece.
Set with 8148 diamonds on geometrical diamond prisms result in a watch/cuff taken from the 70’s with a mix of punk and glamour. The watch which appears more like a jewelry cuff has a top part that slides to unveil a snow- paved dial. A secret watch for a daring woman.
Thanking his team and how they manage to find solutions to what seemed to be insolvable problems … Francois-Henri Bennahmias, CEO of Audemars Piguet is known to be good at passing on messages clear and loud. He took the opportunity to, on-stage, ask for the other brands to participate to the GPHG …
In other words, it meant “it is not because you have a big name and a big production that you should look up and down. Don’t be lame, show us what you got and participate.” That being said … what will their next High Jewelry piece be ?
Extremely Piaget is not a new piece – yet, the reason why it got the “Best Revival Watch” award at GPHG2015 is understandable.
Designed in 1970, The Extremely Piaget Double Sided Cuff watch is reversible. Set within geometrical lines of diamonds the first side shows a natural opal dial with a delicate snow-paved diamond bracelet.
On the other side, the dial is made of natural black onyx surrounded by a vintage hammered gold bracele.t
Extremely sensual, extremely feminine. A delicate piece of jewelry that thankfully, gives the time !
