Five Geneva Watch Days Highlights to Look for This Fall

Girard-Perregaux Tourbillon With Three Flying Bridges

The word iconic gets thrown around far too liberally in the watch world, but Girard-Perregaux’s Tourbillon with Three Gold Bridges is the real deal. The distinctive design dates to an award-winning 1867 pocket watch produced by the Swiss house, which marks its 230th anniversary this year. In celebration of the milestone, the brand is offering contemporary reinterpretations of some of its everlasting models. 

Girard-Perregaux’s Three Flying Bridges (US$156,000) features the brand’s contemporary
Neo Bridges
sculpted in pink gold for the first time—though designers downplayed that luxe touch and amped up the edginess by coating all but the edges in black PVD. Turn the watch over, and the three bridges on the reverse are titanium coated in matte black PVD.

The distinctive bridges support the gear train, barrel, and tourbillon while doing double duty as the mainplate, creating the illusion that they are suspended in midair, hence the name Flying Bridges. 

Even the crystal is engineered to extremes with sloping sides that curve all the way to the edges of the 44mm rose gold case, eliminating the need for a conventional bezel.  

H. Moser & Cie. Streamliner Perpetual Calendar

H. Moser & Cie. combined last year’s retro-futuristic Streamliner sport watch with an updated version of its signature perpetual calendar complication that put the boutique brand on the map 2005.  

The Streamliner Perpetual Calendar (US$54,900) evokes its namesake high-speed trains from the 1920s and ’30s with rounded curves and a steel cushion-shaped case measuring 42.3mm. 

The sculptural, aerodynamic case is topped with a subtly domed glassbox-type sapphire crystal and is complemented by a fluid integrated bracelet with links designed to comfortably conform to the wrist. 

The model is powered by the new hand-wound HMC 812 calibre, an evolution of the brand’s minimalistic HMC 341 perpetual calendar calibre. The HMC 812, with two barrels delivering a guaranteed power reserve of 168 hours, similarly uses the 12 hour indexes to indicate the month via a small red-and-white central hand. 

The difference from the original is that all the hands, including the second hand, are anchored at the center of the dial, plus the movement’s architecture is more open and treated with a darker, modern finish. An aperture at 4 o’clock, aligned with the crown, shows the date with two superimposed discs that instantaneously change at midnight. And to preserve its purity and simplicity, the leap year display remains hidden on the back, visible through the sapphire crystal. 

Czapek & Cie. Antarctique Rattrapante

In a similar vein, the indie brand Czapek & Cie. infused its sporty steel Antarctique collection with megadose of high horology in a new skeletonized split-second chronograph, the Antarctique Rattrapante (€43,400, about US$51,189), limited to 77 pieces.

Rattrapante means “catch up,” referring to the chronograph’s use of two superimposed second hands that run together until you press a pusher to stop one while the other keeps timing. With another press, the split second hand catches up to the main timing hand, allowing you to record multiple interval times in an event, such as a race.  

Rattrapantes are highly coveted among collectors for their technical complexity, so Czapek built the 42.5mm Antarctique Rattrapante with the mechanism visible on the dial side, in what it claims is an industry first. Now the wearer can easily admire the ballet of cams, levers and wheels in action. 

Czapek’s patent-pending SHX6 calibre, created in collaboration with Chronode, features two column wheels, one at the top (for the chronograph) and the other at the bottom (for the split-second mechanism), dividing the movement into two halves with the minute totalizer at four o’clock and the small second at seven o’clock serving as visual anchors. 

Urwerk UR-100 Electrum

Urwerk has revisited its 100 collection with the new UR-100 Electrum, limited to 25 pieces, with a case made from a warm yellow alloy of gold and palladium called Electrum. The brand says the material was prized in early cultures such as the ancient Greeks, Amerindians, and Egyptians. 

The 41mm case is decorated with concentric circular grooves, a decoration that can evoke any number of inspirations—from a Greek amphitheater to repeating orbital patterns.

The rotating central satellite display dynamically shows hours, while passing minutes are tracked on a linear retrograde scale along the bottom. But the UR-100 Electrum (US$67,700) has a twist: At the passing of the last minute every hour, the minute hand disappears and reappears at the upper left of the dial where a scale tracks the 555 kilometers that the earth rotates every 20 minutes as calculated from the average speed of the earth’s rotation at the equator (about 1,000 mph). 

At the upper right, another scale tracks the distance of the earth’s orbit around the sun, corresponding to 35,740 kilometers every 20 minutes. 

Oris Aquis Date Upcycle

Oris
has demonstrated a longstanding commitment to environmental causes, particularly those that relate to marine and water conservation projects around the world as part of its Change for the Better initiative. 

Last month, the brand announced it had achieved climate neutrality and will be publishing its first sustainability report in partnership with ClimatePartner next year. It also officially unveiled the Aquis Date Upcycle (US$2,300) featuring dials made of recycled PET plastic. The stainless-steel models are available in 41.5mm or 36.5mm sizes, each fitted with a unidirectional rotating diver’s bezel with a scratch-resistant grey ceramic insert, and water resistance to 300 meters. 

What’s new are the colorful, radiant, sustainable faces. Because the PET plastic recycling process produces random patterns, no two dials are alike in coloration or pattern. 

Oris hopes the Upcycle will inspire people to make a commitment to reducing the dire ocean plastic crisis and lend a hand in cleaning up plastic and other trash. Oris, along with its global network of partners and suppliers have organized clean-up events for World Cleanup Day for years.