WT_2009_03: PROFILE: GERALD GENTA

illon Perpetual Calendar Moon Phase, with an eye-poppingly
busy dial featuring power reserve, month, date and leap year,
day of the week and moon-phase in both northern and southern
hemisphere.
At Baselworld 2009, the brand unveiled the newest addition
to the Octo line, the Octo Tourbillon Sunray. The watch marks
Gérald Genta’s first foray in a while into yellow gold, a precious
metal whose popularity in the watch world has in recent years
been usurped by rose gold. Its dial consists of two superimposed
gold plates over a black-lacquered base, intended to evoke the
look of a solar eclipse. It has raised retrograde hour numerals
and dauphine hands and an octagonal aperture at 6 o’clock for
the tourbillon, which is mounted on a sapphire bridge. The
bezel is satin-brushed with gold studs. The typical Genta beaded
crown has a hawk’s-eye stone set into it. The watch is also
available in rose gold or in a “tri-composite” version with platinum
case middle, tantalum bezel and white-gold studs. The Octo
Tourbillon Sunray has a suggested retail price of $149,800.
MADE IN EXTREMELY LIMITED QUANTITIES in both the Octo
and Arena collections are minute repeaters and grande sonnerie
watches. Gérald Genta has adopted these complications as
specialties, with a particular focus on the extremely sophisticated
grande sonnerie style. Unlike a minute repeater, which requires
the use of a push-piece or a slide to activate its chimes indicating
the hour, quarter hour and minute, a grande sonnerie
will not only perform this task on demand but will chime each
quarter hour on its own, requiring no outside force but rather the
energy of the watch’s movement. Only a handful of elite watch
brands, including Patek Philippe, Vacheron Constantin and Audemars
Piguet, and independent watch artisans, like F.P. Journe
and Philippe Dufour, even offer one in their collections; only
slightly more brands even offer a minute repeater. This extraordinary
feat of haute horlogerie was an obsession of the brand’s
founder and namesake, who in 1973 introduced the first Pocket
Grande Sonnerie, with three hammers and a perpetual calendar.
In 1994, the watch-design maestro celebrated a quarter century
in the watch business with his first Grande Sonnerie wristwatch,
the fruits of five years of research and development whose movement
included an astonishing 1,000 separate components despite
being only 15 mm thick and weighing only 117 grams.
Today, this bold breakthrough lives on in two Gérald Genta
Grande Sonnerie models. The Octo Grande Sonnerie ($810,200)
contains a self-winding movement, called GG 3100, with a tourbillon
and 48-hour power reserve. The watch includes both a
grande and petite sonnerie function; the grande sonnerie, or full
strike, chimes the hours on the hour, and both the hours and quarter
hours at each quarter hour. The petite sonnerie, or quarter
strike, chimes the hours on the hour and only the quarters at each
quarter hour. The movement uses four hammers to activate the
Westminster chimes. The watch also includes separate power-reserve
displays for both the grande sonnerie (18 hours) and the petite
sonnerie (14 hours); manually activating either chiming function
— in other words, using it as a minute repeater — will deplete
the power faster, so the displays serve an eminently useful
The new Octo Tourbillon Sunray has a
yellow-gold case and an octagonal
tourbillon aperture at 6 o’clock.
The Octo Grande Sonnerie offers
both “full strike” and “quarter
strike” capabilities.