WATCHMAKING EXCELLENCE: THE GPHG 2025 WINNERS

The 25th Grand Prix d'Horlogerie de Genève (GPHG) ceremony illuminated Geneva on November 13, 2025, honouring the finest achievements in contemporary watchmaking. In a notable shift from recent years, the coveted Aiguille d'Or was awarded to Breguet's elegant Classique Souscription 2025, a remarkably simple single-hand watch, marking a philosophical moment that celebrates essential watchmaking over hyper-complication.

Celebrating Breguet's 250th anniversary, the Classique Souscription 2025 draws inspiration from the groundbreaking souscription pocket watch of 1796, featuring a white grand feu enamel dial. It's crafted in proprietary "Breguet gold"—a blend of 75% gold with silver, copper, and palladium—in a 40 mm case. The hand-wound VS00 calibre beats at 3Hz with a remarkable 96-hour power reserve with fine shot-blasting and hand-engraved guilloché decoration. A single flame-blued steel Breguet hand, curved by hand, indicates time across black petit feu enamel Arabic numerals.

Named after founder Georges Favre-Jacot, the Zenith G.F.J. celebrates the brand's 160th anniversary by reviving the legendary Calibre 135 movement, which holds the distinction of being the most awarded movement of all time with 235 chronometry prizes. The 39.15 mm platinum case houses the modernised Calibre 135 with its signature 13 ligne diametre and improved 72-hour power reserve, up from the original's 40 hours. The elaborate dial features guilloché work, a lapis lazuli centre disk with golden pyrite flakes, and a blue mother-of-pearl seconds subdial.

The Royal Oak Perpetual Calendar combines 18-carat sand gold with one of watchmaking's most classic complications, featuring day, date, month, astronomical moon, and week of the year. It's displayed on the Grande Tapisserie dial, which harmonises beautifully with the sand gold case to go with its 18-carat white gold hour-markers and luminescent hands in a 41 mm case.

The Mark 1 Möbius redefines technical miniaturisation and spatial design in high-end watchmaking with an in-house bi-axis tourbillon housed within one of the most compact wristwatch formats ever created. The dual-axis tourbillon rotates on two axes at 150 seconds and 60 seconds respectively, forming the kinetic centrepiece of this architectural marvel housed within a capsule-style movement. A lugless design enhances the watch's refined ergonomics, while the exterior contrasts the movement's intricacy with radical minimalism through its concave stainless steel case.

The Daniel Roth Extra Plat Rose Gold represented purity and savoir-faire, masterfully balancing modern elegance with time-honoured craft. This simple three-hand watch demonstrates that restraint and refinement can create watches of lasting beauty, focusing on essential watchmaking without unnecessary complication.

The Gentissima Oursin Fire Opal features an audacious flame-hued dial surrounded by 137 individually set fire opals, proving that restraint wasn't the only theme of the evening. This bold creation celebrates colour and gemstone artistry, bringing distinctive character to ladies' watchmaking through its daring use of rare fire opals.

Bvlgari's Swiss watchmaking division demonstrates remarkable horological expertise by integrating a skeleton tourbillon into a watch with a total thickness of just 1.85 mm, pushing the boundaries of ultra-thin watchmaking. The Octo Finissimo Ultra Tourbillon represents the pinnacle of contemporary technical achievement in creating watchmaking's most emblematic complication within an impossibly slim profile.

The special edition Chronographe Télémètre in yellow gold recalls Angelus' functional and aesthetic heritage with its 37 mm case featuring characteristic curves that run from lug to lug. The white nickel dial showcases the hallmark dual-scale layout with a telemetre scale for measuring distances based on sound speed, while the satin-finished flange contrasts with the grained centre effect, separated by a delicate diamond-polished thread. Powered by the in-house A5000 calibre with 42-hour power reserve, it features a small seconds at 9 o'clock and 30-minute totaliser at 3 o'clock, oscillating at 3Hz.

The Alpine Eagle 41 SL Cadence 8HF showcases Chopard's expertise in creating high-end sports watches with sophisticated mechanical movements. The 8HF designation indicates a high-frequency movement, delivering enhanced precision in a robust yet refined package designed for active wear while maintaining the elegance expected from the Alpine Eagle collection.

The Imperiale Four Seasons features an innovative rotating disc that completes a full revolution over 365 days, following the natural cycle of the seasons. This poetic complication transforms the passage of time into a visual celebration of nature's annual rhythm, combining Chopard's jewellery craftsmanship with genuine mechanical complexity in a feminine timekeeper.

The La D de Dior Buisson Couture exemplifies the fusion of high-end jewellery with high-end watchmaking, celebrating Dior's couture heritage through exceptional gemstone artistry. This jewellery watch demonstrates how precious stones and mechanical movements can unite to create wearable art that transcends traditional boundaries between jewellery and watchmaking.

This breakthrough watch introduces nanomechanics—the control of energy at the nanojoule scale inside a mechanical movement—that enables the Nano Foudroyante to operate using just 16 nanojoules per jump, compared to 30 microjoules in traditional designs, a staggering reduction by a factor of 1,800. The complication divides each second into six segments using a lightweight red-treated hand that rotates once per second, embedded within Greubel Forsey's first flying tourbillon, with the foudroyante's dial remaining permanently oriented to twelve o'clock even as the tourbillon rotates. The 37.90 mm white gold case houses a hand-wound flyback with two patents and 428 components.

The Récital 30 is the ultimate worldtimer, focusing solely on the groundbreaking worldtime system on rollers that can be adjusted to any of the four time periods of the year, ensuring all 24 world time zones and New Delhi's 30-minute offset remain accurate year-round. The worldtime rollers cover nearly the entire dial, making global timekeeping the clear focus of this watch with a day/night indicator linked to local time in the centre. Building on the legacy of the Récital 28 Prowess 1, which won the GPHG Mechanical Exception Award in 2024, the Récital 30 solves the challenge of Daylight Saving Time that no previous mechanical worldtimer could address.

At the heart of the UJ-2 is the double wheel natural escapement, a mechanism whose elegance belies the complexity of its creation. The creation was praised for representing purity and savoir-faire, masterfully balancing modern elegance with time-honored craft. This award recognises Urban Jürgensen's commitment to preserving and advancing traditional escapement technology.

Master watchmaker Kari Voutilainen's 28GML SOUYOU exemplifies the highest level of decorative artistry combined with mechanical excellence. The piece showcases Voutilainen's signature approach to hand-finishing and guilloché work, demonstrating why he remains one of the most respected independent watchmakers for artistic craftsmanship.

The M.A.D.2 Green, designed by Max Büsser of MB&F, wins in the accessible high-end category for watches priced between CHF 3,000 and CHF 10,000. This playful yet sophisticated watch brings M.A.D. Editions' creative spirit to a broader audience, offering distinctive design at an attainable price point.

The Albatross, created in collaboration between L'Épée 1839 and MB&F, represents sculptural horology at its finest. This mechanical clock combines L'Épée's 185-year expertise in clockmaking with MB&F's visionary design approach, resulting in a kinetic creation that challenges conventional notions of how clocks should look and function.

Independent Russian watchmaker Anton Suhanov pays tribute to Carl Fabergé with this striking clock that balances tradition and modernity, featuring two hidden surprises. The first is a "flaming balance wheel" with luminescent inserts that illuminate the three-axis tourbillon in darkness, while the second incorporates a 24-hour worldtime function cleverly integrated into the classical rotating ring display. The egg-shaped clock appears to stand vertically without visible support, combining a mirror-polished stainless steel base, a hand-guilloché silver case with translucent hot enamel, and a domed sapphire crystal above the tourbillon. Measuring 100 mm in diametre, the tourbillon cage is crafted in titanium with a distinctive "three-lotus-bud" design, anodised in azure blue.