Inside the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève, Watchmaking’s Most Prestigious Prize

With the Nobel Prize announcements underway, awards are once again drawing attention to achievements that take years to earn and only a moment to recognize. There isn’t exactly a Nobel Prize for watches, but the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève, better known as the GPHG, is routinely described as the industry’s Oscars. Its 26th edition will bring the watch world to Geneva’s Bâtiment des Forces Motrices on Nov. 7, when this year’s winners will be announced.

Created in 2001 and overseen by a public-interest foundation since 2011, the GPHG puts established luxury houses and small independent watchmakers in the same competition, allowing workshops that produce only a few dozen watches a year to compete alongside some of the industry’s biggest names. For collectors, the nominations offer a survey of contemporary watchmaking; for brands, they provide exposure to specialists, retailers and enthusiasts whose attention can be hard to win.

What the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève prizes recognize

The GPHG’s highest honor is the Aiguille d’Or, or Golden Hand, which goes to the best overall timepiece across all categories, making it the evening’s equivalent of Best Picture. Recent winners show the range of what can take the top prize: IWC’s mechanically ambitious Portugieser Eternal Calendar won in 2024, and Breguet’s far simpler, single-hand Classique Souscription 2025 won the following year.

Alongside that top honor, 14 competition categories recognize different approaches to watchmaking. The Time Only award is reserved for watches that display the time with two or three hands and no additional indications, while the Essential award allows features such as a date, power reserve or conventional moon phase, as well as alternative ways of displaying the time. The Complication award recognizes greater mechanical complexity, and the Mechanical Exception award covers unusual mechanisms, including striking watches and automatons. Other categories focus on chronographs, tourbillons, calendars and astronomy, sports watches, jewelry, gemsetting, artistic crafts and mechanical clocks.

This year’s structure also does away with the former men’s and ladies’ divisions, grouping watches by their features rather than the gender of their intended wearer. The change reflects increasingly blurred lines between watches marketed to different audiences and a broader industry shift toward non-gendered timepieces. Meanwhile, two categories give more attainable watches a place of their own: the Challenge award covers pieces retailing for up to CHF 4,500, and the Petite Aiguille award recognizes those priced between CHF 4,500 and CHF 10,000, so that less expensive watches have dedicated prizes alongside those honoring the industry’s most elaborate creations.

How Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève winners are chosen

The selection process begins with the GPHG Academy, an international body of more than 1,000 members that includes watchmakers, designers, artisans, retailers, journalists and collectors. Academy members propose timepieces for consideration, but the brands concerned must agree to enter them and pay the participation fees; brands can also submit models on their own without an Academy proposal. From that field, an initial Academy vote selects six nominees in each category. This year’s 84 finalists were drawn from 320 entries submitted by 194 brands.

The finalists are then examined in person in Geneva by a smaller jury, led this year by Wei Koh, founder of the watch publication Revolution. The 24-member panel combines Academy members drawn by lot with jurors selected by Koh, along with Breguet CEO Gregory Kissling, who holds the seat reserved for the previous year’s Aiguille d’Or winner. Under the rules, the brand that wins the Aiguille d’Or sits out the following year’s competition entirely. Voting takes place under notarial supervision, with the jury accounting for two-thirds of the final result and a second Academy ballot making up the remaining third.

The results are revealed at the November ceremony, but the nominated watches reach the public before the trophies are handed out. This year’s exhibition tour takes the nominated wristwatches to Mumbai and Bangkok before all 84 finalists go on view at Geneva’s Musée d’Art et d’Histoire from Oct. 29 to Nov. 15. After the ceremony, the winning pieces travel to London for an exhibition from Nov. 18-23.

What the awards don’t cover

For all its prestige, the GPHG doesn’t represent the entire watch industry. Geneva is an important watchmaking center, but production extends across Switzerland and well beyond it, and no single governing body speaks for every manufacturer. Participation is voluntary, and some of the industry’s most prominent names, including Rolex, Cartier and Patek Philippe, are absent from this year’s competition, as they have been in previous years. The winners are therefore chosen from the participating field rather than from every significant watch released.

Participation also comes at a cost: brands pay CHF 800 per entry and another CHF 7,000 for each nominated watch. According to the GPHG, the latter fee funds the competition, exhibitions and promotional services for the finalists, while the winners themselves are determined solely through the voting process described above.

There are, however, exceptions to this entry-based system. This year’s Iconic Watch Prize can honor a contemporary reinterpretation of a design with more than 20 years of influence, even if it wasn’t entered through the regular process. The Special Jury Prize likewise allows the jury to recognize individuals, institutions or brands, including nonparticipants, for contributions to watchmaking or an exemplary approach to ethics and sustainability.

While the GPHG is widely regarded as watchmaking’s most prestigious awards competition, other prizes serve different purposes within the industry. The Louis Vuitton Watch Prize for Independent Creatives gives winners a €150,000 grant and a year of mentorship, providing practical support along with recognition. Red Dot evaluates watches alongside products from other fields, while the WatchPro Awards honor individual watches as well as brands, retailers and others working in the business.

What winning the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève can change

The most immediate benefits of a GPHG win are prestige and attention, which can help a watchmaker reach new customers even if the commercial effects are harder to measure. For smaller businesses, that recognition can carry serious weight. The German independent Kudoke won the Petite Aiguille award in 2019 and again in 2024. Reflecting on the years since its first win, the company has described reaching more collectors, expanding its team and moving into new premises.

Christopher Ward’s chiming C1 Bel Canto won the Petite Aiguille award in 2023, adding industry recognition to an already successful watch. Co-founder Mike France later told the trade publication WatchPro that the model helped the company nearly double its annual revenue to £30.5 million in the year ending March 2024, though those figures don’t show how much of that growth came from the award itself.

Much as an Oscar nomination can give a film another reason to be seen, GPHG recognition gives brands something to promote and collectors a reason to take notice. A trophy doesn’t guarantee sales or future resale value, but it can lend credibility to an unfamiliar name and bring an overlooked watch to a wider audience.

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