Founded by Monsieur Gérald Genta, the eponymous Maison is now back in business under the supervision of esteemed Master Watchmakers Michel Navas and Enrico Barbasini of Fabrique du Temps Louis Vuitton, both part of the same team that helped the Master in his most creative endeavors in the 1980s.
Michel Navas cites the three pillars of the Gérald Genta brand: "The octagonal shape, the sound of repetition, and Haute Horlogerie complications." All of these key elements are obviously part of the new Gérald Genta watches, first displayed during LVMH Watch Week in January this year.
The first watches since the brand's rebirth follow theuncompromising approach that Gérald Genta has imposed on his brand since its earliest days in 1969: haute horlogerie complications reinterpreted into extravagant design creations. Indeed, Gérald Genta was not a classical watchmaker. He was an artist before anything else, not to diminish his achievements as a product designer, an artist who challenged the classicism of Swiss watchmaking. His models, often made of precious or avant-garde materials, dared to combine lapis lazuli, tiger's eye, onyx or mother-of-pearl, with high complications that no one at the time dared to even consider working on.
Not surprisingly, Genta created an extraordinary mix of one-of-a-kind pieces, as well as small numbered retrograde series, grand chimes, and perpetual calendars. The brand was ahead of its time both technically and stylistically because Gérald Genta had carte blanche to create on his own terms-this same freedom and creativity animates the Maison's new creations today.
Gérald Genta paid no attention to what others were doing: his inspiration and execution was an autonomous process. He found in nature, case design and art his greatest stimuli. Picasso was his greatest inspiration, because of his continually renewed creativity and multidimensional artistry The brand also established itself as a change actor when the famous watchmaker presented his models depicting Disney characters at the Basel Salon in 1984 .
At the crossroads between the world of watchmaking and pop culture, these new pieces invite childlike playfulness to start a new game. Criticized by the conservative watch industry of the time, this unprecedented approach appealed to Gérald Genta customers, who enthusiastically wore legendary cartoon heroes on their wrists and demanded new creations.
Forty years later, this collaboration with Disney remains one of the House's flagship series. Today, these playful watches combine Gérald Genta's favorite complication, the minute repeater, with the octagonal case he loved so much for the balance of its lines and its visual impact. True to Gérald Genta's typical elegance, the current 40 mm diameter case maintains a thickness of less than 12 mm.
Extremely sophisticated, the movements of Gérald Genta watches challenged the limits of what was technically possible. Whatever complications were at the heart of the watch, the caliber was always given pride of place for the sake of absolute elegance. This same quest for excellence still guides the Maison and the development of the current Gérald Genta manufacture caliber GG-001. The brand thus unveiled its very first movement created since its rebirth: a hand-wound caliber equipped with a jumping-hour minute repeater and a retrograde mechanism developed and assembled by the craftsmen of La Fabrique du Temps. The new beating heart of the Maison's watchmakers, this caliber is inspired by an extraordinary heritage to write an exceptional future.
The combination of minute repeater and jumping hour mechanism is-not surprisingly-a rare achievement in watchmaking, and for good reason. The development of two separate timekeeping systems (one for chimes and the other for jumping hours) that are perfectly reliable, synchronized, and energy efficient is a real feat. Michel Navas and Enrico Barbasini thus called upon all their expertise and considerable mastery of complications, acquired over the years together with Monsieur Genta. Together, they have created a mechanism that guarantees perfect synchronism between the time display and the chime, perpetuating Gérald Genta's approach of putting design elegance at the service of Haute Horlogerie.
