Why the Relaunch of Gérald Genta Matters

Gérald Genta was, as they say, the hero watchmaking deserved but not the one it needed, at least at the time he began breaking out of the conventional molds of watch design in the 1970s. His designs were iconoclastic in the exact sense of the word — a breaking down of norms that was, in the larger context of watch design, tantamount to an attack on the hidebound traditions of watchmaking. And they often took some time to gain traction, representing, as they did, very much a departure from horological business as usual.

Recently, LVMH has announced that, under the supervision of Jean Arnault and with the blessing of Genta’s widow Evelyn, it will revive the company which Genta started under his own name in 1969 and whose establishment actually pre-dated his best-known work. Thanks to the participation of Evelyn Genta, the revived Gérald Genta firm will have access to the late designer’s full archive, which includes hundreds of watch designs.

From the Royal Oak to Mickey Mouse: A Lifetime of Iconic Watch Design

Genta is today still best known for just a handful of watch designs — most watch enthusiasts will, if prompted, name at least the Royal Oak, the Nautilus and perhaps the IWC Ingenieur. But he was incredibly prolific — by his own account he produced not a handful, not dozens, but tens of thousands of watch designs. In an interview from 2009, Genta discussed the early stages of his career as a watch designer, going all the way back to the lean years of the 1950s when the Swiss watch industry was a tiny fraction of its current size. At that time, according to Genta, watch design was piecemeal work. Designers, such as they were, were expected to be able to produce designs for “cases, dials, bracelets, and everything to do with watches,” — often for as little as fifteen Swiss francs per design, which seems like a mighty tough way to make a living. Under such circumstances, Genta was forced to be prolific, but it is hard to avoid the impression that he would have been prolific anyway — to the end of his long life (he was born in 1931 and passed away in 2011 at the age of 80) his work was marked not so much by a particular series of motifs as it was by sheer variety.

This is not to say that there are not some connections between his best-known works — the Royal Oak, Ingenieur SL and Nautilus all have obvious similarities, including the bezel as an integral and prominent part of the design and integrated bracelets intended to both visually and physically be an essential part of the design as well. But Genta restlessly explored a wide range of designs over the course of his lifetime.

To pick just one obvious example of Genta being more or less the exact opposite of the stereotype many have of him as a sort of mandarin of post-modern minimalism, one has only to look at his range of character watches, which included the Retro Fantasy series of retrograde watches based on Disney characters (Genta did non-retrograde character watches as well). One of his most impactful cartoon character watches showed the famous cartoon character, the Pink Panther, who made an appearance in 11 films from 1963 all the way up to 2009. In 1984, Genta showed a Pink Panther watch in a gold and diamond case at the Montres et Bijoux de Genève watch and jewelry show (a precursor to the SIHH, which was the precursor to the current Watches and Wonders exhibition) along with a Mickey Mouse watch and another depicting a nude. None of this seems especially outrageous today, when you can hardly be a luxury watch brand at all without doing something “transgressive” (even industry stalwart Rolex has gotten in on the act) but in 1984 the idea of cartoon characters on luxury Swiss watches was so outrageous to the inherently conservative and risk-averse Swiss watch industry that Genta was told by the show organizers that he had to take the offending watches out of his display windows. He left the show entirely instead.

At the same time, Genta was, on a certain level, a watchmaker’s watchmaker as well as a designer, who, at his own brand, relentlessly pursued extremely complicated watchmaking in both technical and visual terms. The apex of both is probably the Genta Grande et Petite Sonnerie, Minute Repeater Tourbillon ref. G.0027.7. By modern standards, it’s not an especially large watch — only 39mm in diameter — but inside the stepped-pyramid-shaped case is the caliber 31000, which had over a thousand parts and which remains one of the most complicated wristwatches ever made (only three were produced).

Changing Hands, Demise and Revival

Genta would sell his company to The Hour Glass in Singapore in 1996, and Bulgari would acquire it in 2000. Bulgari has made some use of both Genta’s designs, as well as some of the expertise in fine watchmaking that the company represents (Genta’s movement constructor, Pierre-Michele Golay, who designed the movements for Genta’s complicated watches including the Grande Sonnerie, was as prolific in movement design as Genta was in watch design) including the production of a Retro Mickey character watch. Now, LVMH has announced that Gérald Genta will be relaunched as a full independent brand, with watchmaking and watch design to take place at Louis Vuitton La Fabrique du Temps. Heading up the project are Michel Navas and Enrico Barbasini, both of whom worked with Gerald Genta in the 1980s and 1990s.

If the approach which La Fabrique du Temps has taken in its relaunch of Daniel Roth is any indication, we can expect an extremely thoughtful take on the watches made by Gérald Genta during the heyday of the brand — and, I think, probably some real surprises, based on the sheer volume of archival material. The reserve of technical innovations at GG is vast also, and includes both ultra-thin and highly complicated watch movements, so the potential variety from the re-established brand is considerable. Genta’s work outside of his designs for Audemars Piguet (which includes, by the way, quite a lot more than the Royal Oak), Patek Philippe and perhaps IWC, is still to this day not nearly as well known as his influence in the industry merits, and the newly independent Gérald Genta brand is likely to resurface aspects of his work which, until now, have been more a part of a semi-forgotten past than a vital present legacy. La Fabrique du Temps has said that the reborn brand will be producing complicated watches in very small quantities, which, we think, is just how Genta would have wanted it.