Gerald Charles is using this year’s Watches and Wonders to celebrate its 25th anniversary since being founded as the family watchmaking firm of designer Gérald Charles Genta
The Geneva-based indie is exhibiting at the main show for the first time and will use its presence to unveil its very first jumping hour watch in the Maestro collection.
The Maestro GC39 Anniversary Edition will also be shown at Gerald Charles’ atelier in the centre of Geneva where it will also present a showcase of designs by Mr Genta, including the Turbo, Round 44, Renaissance, Sportside and Seaside.
“It is a great honour for me and my family to guide Gerald Charles into its 25th anniversary year,” says Federico Ziviani, Gerald Charles chief executive.
“Since the Maison’s revival in 2019, it has been our privilege to introduce it to a new generation of collectors. Across the globe, watch lovers have embraced Gerald Charles with wonderful enthusiasm. These successes have been built on the peerless Maestro and now it’s time to look to the future and showcase the breathtaking depth in the Maison and in the creativity of our founder, Gérald Charles Genta.”
Mr Genta’s design work for Patek Philippe, Audemars Piguet, IWC and others had made him a legend of the industry — known as the maestro — by the time he launched his own business, Gerald Charles, in 2000.
The family of Mr Ziviani acquired and relaunched the company in 2019, and set about creating prestigious watches using Mr Genta’s archive of designs.
To mark a quarter of a century since Gerald Charles was founded, the watchmaker has made a modern reinterpretation of a 2005 model described as a montre à guichet, or window watch.
The original model had a sliding-hour complication developed by Antoine Preziuso.
It showed the hour on a rotating disc revealed through an elongated aperture at the top of the dial, which works in harmony with a central minutes hand.
Mr Ziviani’s team chose to recreate the watch in its Maestro GC39 asymmetric case, which has its signature ‘smile’ at 6 o’clock bringing character to its shape.
Mr Genta is famous for combining iconic case shapes with unforgettable dials, a trick that the modern Gerald Charles has delivered with the 42mm x 42mm x 11mm polished titanium case and a Baroque-style star burst dial made from three different components and materials.
A meta-guilloché process, which Gerald Charles says has never been used in watchmaking before, begins with a fine engraving that is then covered by a protective coating.
A second engraving is then added before the protective coating is removed, allowing the light to catch and reveal the star.
The engraving is created with rounded channels that mean the three-dimensional surface catches and scatters light from its lapis lazuli centre.
It is powered by a new Gerald Charles Swiss manufacture jumping hours automatic movement with 50-hour power reserve. It has been hand-decorated with Côtes de Genève stripes and perlage finishes and given a special 25th anniversary golden rotor.
“It will be our pleasure to present both the original and new Maestro GC39, alongside archive pieces, to guests of the Maison at Watches and Wonders Geneva and in the Gerald Charles Atelier this week,” says Mr. Ziviani.
“It is our firm belief that the new watch is a fitting tribute to Mr. Genta’s tireless creativity and wonderful legacy, and also a sign of how seriously we take his eternal challenge to produce beautiful, timeless, high-quality mechanical watches produced with ‘No Compromise’ for collectors of fine watches. The story of Gerald Charles lives on.”