GPHG 2026 Winners: Rexhep Rexhepi Returns, Eight Years After His First Prize

Eight years after his Chronomètre Contemporain won the Men's Watch Prize at the Grand Prix d'Horlogerie de Genève, Rexhep Rexhepi has taken the competition's top award. His Chronograph Flyback, the first he has made, won the Aiguille d'Or Grand Prix on November 7 in Geneva. Stéphane Bern and Arianne Alcorta hosted the 26th edition, and the Director-General of UNESCO attended. A jury chaired by Wei Koh, working with an Academy of more than 1,000 members, handed out 20 prizes.

Chopard went into the night with six nominations, more than any other brand, and came away with two prizes. Ferdinand Berthoud, part of the Chopard group, won two more. Audemars Piguet won twice from four nominations, while Bvlgari, which also had four, left without a prize.

Rexhepi's watch puts the hours and minutes in a small sub-dial at 12 o'clock, with the chronograph seconds hand at the center. It runs on a hand-wound caliber of 320 components, and the minute counter jumps instantly as each minute passes. The brand counts the 9.7mm case among the slimmest chronographs with a fully in-house movement, and the dial's sector scales take their cue from the 2018 winner, which ran under the Akrivia name.

For the Royal Oak "Jumbo" Extra-thin Selfwinding Flying Tourbillon Chronograph RD#5 "150th Anniversary," winner of the Iconic Watch Prize, Audemars Piguet reworked a chronograph reset mechanism that it says had stayed largely unchanged for 150 years. The pushers are touch-sensitive, a world first by the brand's account, and the whole watch is 8.1mm thick.

Patek Philippe's Special Jury Prize went to an exhibition rather than a watch. The Watch Art Grand Exhibition filled more than 2,900 square meters in Milan from October 2 to 18 and drew 68,000 visitors, 400 of them journalists. By Patek Philippe's count, it was the largest exhibition the manufacture has ever organized.

Konstantin Chaykin's ThinKing Mystery, winner of the Audacity Prize, has no crown; it winds with a 94mm steel key slotted into the caseback. Its hour and minute travel on two clear sapphire discs, each 0.2mm thick, which leaves the indications looking as if they float, and the entire watch weighs 12.1 grams without a strap. Chaykin, who is making 12, calls it the thinnest mechanical watch ever produced in an ultra-limited series.

The back of the movement of Naissance d'une Montre 3 is engraved "Au temps qui instruit," a line the brand attributes to Louis Berthoud. The watch, which won the Chronometry Prize, takes its cue from the Astronomical Pocket Watch No. 3 by Ferdinand Berthoud, the 18th-century clockmaker for whom the brand is named. Ten more will be made in gold, two a year, beginning this year.

Dominique Renaud's brand website calls him "l'horloger des horlogers," the watchmaker's watchmaker. In 1986 he started the Renaud Papi manufacture, which was later sold to Audemars Piguet. This year, he debuted a brand under his own name, and its Pulse60 Titanium Black won the Horological Revelation Prize. Its redesigned balance swings past 360 degrees, and runs 96 hours on a full wind.

Blancpain's Grande Double Sonnerie, the Mechanical Exception Watch Prize winner, chimes either of two melodies at the push of a button. One is the Westminster chime, which Blancpain traces to 1793 and Cambridge's Church of St. Mary the Great. The other was written by Eric Singer, the drummer best known for his years with KISS, together with keyboardist Derek Sherinian, and Blancpain has labeled it "Blancpain." The watch has 1,116 components, and Blancpain makes two a year.

On the dial side of Mathieu Cleguer's Inspiration One, a snailed barrel carries the 36-hour power reserve indicator. On the back, a Maltese cross stop-work limits the power reserve to keep the rate consistent. The first watch from Cleguer's brand, designed with Lee Yuen-Rapati, won the Complication Watch Prize. It is a 12-piece series in white gold, priced at about $125,200.

"A world first," Parmigiani Fleurier says of the Tonda PF Chronographe Mystérieux. "A chronograph that reveals itself only when called upon." The Chronograph Watch Prize winner runs five coaxial hands off a triple clutch, one vertical and two horizontal, inside a case of stainless steel and 950 platinum.

In 1787, Ferdinand Berthoud published De la mesure du temps in Paris, a supplement to his treatise on marine clocks. The brand that carries his name calls its new collection, launched ten years after its first movement, Mesure du Temps 1787. From that collection, the Chronomètre FB 2TV won the Tourbillon Watch Prize, Ferdinand Berthoud's second of the night. It is made at a rate of 10 to 12 a year.

Ushio is Japanese for "tide," and the dials of Grand Seiko's Spring Drive U.F.A. Ushio 300 Diver, winner of the Sports Watch Prize, follow the water: the blue recalls light falling into the deep ocean, the green shallow coastal water. Case and bracelet are high-intensity titanium, about 30 percent lighter than stainless steel by the brand's measure.

Audemars Piguet's second prize, for Calendar and Astronomy, went to a pocket watch. The 150 Heritage, in hand-engraved platinum on a hand-made platinum chain, is built from 1,099 components, with a calendar that tracks nine cultural celebrations from different traditions. Its catalog price, about $3.3 million, is the highest of any winner.

Daniel Roth has now won GPHG prizes in back-to-back years. The Extra Plat Rose Gold took the Time Only Prize in 2025. This year the Extra Plat Rose Gold Skeleton won the Essential Watch Prize, its bridges and mainplate redesigned for openwork and every bridge bevelled by hand.

Chopard's L.U.C 1860, the Time Only Watch Prize winner, runs on a self-winding movement 3.3mm thick with a 22-carat gold micro-rotor, a descendant of the caliber Chopard built in Fleurier in 1996. It carries both COSC certification and the Poinçon de Genève.

Chopard's other prize, for Jewellery, went to the Mystery Nut, a walnut in rose gold. A cognac diamond releases its hidden hinge, and inside sits a moonphase watch with "PEACE" engraved on both sides, facing a diamond-set dove carrying an olive branch in the opposite shell. Chopard made one, priced at about $1.06 million.

In one of seven animations set off by a pusher at 8 o'clock, "LOVE" turns into "MOVE" on the dial of Louis Vuitton's Tambour Taiko Arty Automata. In another, the flying tourbillon, shaped as a peace symbol, makes its once-a-minute turn. The eyelashes on the dial are tiny pieces of colored feathers. The watch won the Artistic Crafts Watch Prize.

Piaget's Swinging Pebble, the Gemset Watch Prize winner, hangs from a twisted gold chain rather than sitting on a wrist. The winning piece pairs a white gold case with a pietersite dial and runs on quartz.

A seconds disk on Otsuka Lotec's No.8 takes 90 seconds to make one turn, spinning above the jumping hour and sliding minute. The No.8 won the "Petite Aiguille" Prize and sells for about $5,950.

SpaceOne's Seconde Majeure, made with Baltic, carries the lowest catalog price of any winner, about $3,650. It was offered in an edition of 3,000 during a six-day sale window in May. Its hours and minutes sit on discs beneath a large seconds hand, the feature that gives the Challenge Watch Prize winner its name.

La Vallée, an Italian family company in its third generation, won the Mechanical Clock Prize with the Cosmo, a clock that can be built so its escapement beats at the owner's resting heart rate. To wind or set it, the owner turns its hand-blown Murano glass dome, which on request can also serve as a resonator to amplify the beat.

Through November 15, all 84 nominated pieces are on view at the Musée d'Art et d'Histoire in Geneva. The winners then go to London, to the Watches of Switzerland boutique in Knightsbridge, from November 18 to 23.