GERALD GENTAGerald Genta is a very interesting brand, bearing the name of one of the most successful watch designers of all time, with creations having stood the passage of time and trends. A man having put his marque on modern horological designs such as the Royal Oak and the Nautilus. Yet Gerald Genta the brand in my opinion had some horrible watches with octagonal cases looking more as if they were directly from a Japanese Science Fiction movie rather than from the mind of such a genius designer. It looks as though the folks from Gérald Genta have tried to reconciliate these two aspects and create a modern watch with a strong design bearing the Genta brand. To do so they inspired themselves with what Genta had previously done and they came up with the new Octo models. There is a direct resemblance in the Octo with Genta’s previous creations, especially the Royal Oak, but it is more an homage rather than plagiarism. I loved the Octo, a very bold design, perfect proportions, a masculine watch with presence. At a time where absolutely everyone is coming out with bigger versions of their existing models which look utterly stupid, Genta created a big watch which looks damn good!! In fact here is a watch which would loose its perfect design had it bee smaller. The Octo models come in white and rose gold cases, cream or red/black lacquered dials and a movement totally developed in the Genta ateliers in the Vallée du Joux.
Genta also added new complications to the Arena line:
DANIEL ROTHUnfortunately I could not attend this presentation, so I will let our Daniel Roth forum moderator, AlbertoS, comment on these pieces: "This year, which will mark the 15th anniversary of the Daniel Roth brand, saw the introduction of many new watches at the Basel fair, including a complete set of special dials on almost the entire Roth product line to celebrate this occasion. A more detailed write-up on the new watches, complete with a chat with Gérald Roden (President and CEO of Daniel Roth), will follow in the Daniel Roth forum." "For now, let's begin by looking at the new automatic tourbillon perpetual calendar which was launched this year, in a new ellipsocurvex case. Notice that, due to the height of the movement which has to include the perpetual calendar plate as well as the rotor, this case is rather thick; however, they have very cleverly respected the visual proportions of the typical Daniel Roth lugs, which means that you really do not notice the case thickness when you have it on your wrist!"
"This year, they are also officially releasing a platinum version of the tourbillon with retrograde date indicator, and power reserve on the back, which we were already able to see last year:"
"Another interesting novelty this year is the perpetual calendar with equation of time and length of month indicator. As far as I can tell, this is a world premiere: a special hand on the watch dial tells you the number of days in the current month, so that you don't go scheduling appointments for the 31st of November!"
"Another new series of watches introduced this year consists in a chronograph which has an optimal power reserve indicator. What I mean by this is that the watch will tell you when the mainspring is in a position to make the chronograph function with optimal accuracy! From what I know, this is another world premiere."
"The major piece which Daniel Roth introduced this year, however, is its Grande & Petite Sonnerie tourbillon. This watch, which our readers will recognise from the image already posted in our Daniel Roth forum (click here to see more pictures and listen to its sound), will be the main watch marking the 15th anniversary of the brand."
"Finally, Daniel Roth are introducting a limited edition series of all their most popular watches, with a special 15th anniversary dial, which can be regognized by a very discrete 'XV' embedded in the guillochage of portions the dials. Very subtle, and very well done!"
CONCLUSIONAn interview with Peter Speake-Marin ended our 2004 fair which was in fact much more interesting than the previous edition! It seems that each year a few trends show up where every one comes out with the same design or complication. For 2004 it was gray dials (which I personally like a lot) and tourbillons. Not ordinary boring tourbillons which, God forbid, only turned clock wise but tourbillons on 2 or three axis whirl-winding away in their tiny little cages. I’m just wondering if these should still be called a tourbillon since they no longer have anything in common with Abraham Louis Breguet’s patent. From what I saw the big watch trend is far from giving its last breath but Harry Winston with the Z1 and Gerald Genta with the Octa with their bold designs did an absolutely perfect job. On the other side of the spectrum Patek Philippe’s new Calatrava pieces were a nice change from all these tourbillons and complications and kudos to their designers who finally opened up one of the brands old catalogues and came up with the superb 5970. Finally among the AHCI members once again I was mostly attracted to one of the rare presenting a simple watch with a lot of character: Peter Speake-Marin and his Piccadilly. The sun was shinning bright in the Basel sky, we packed our belongings in the car and headed south to Geneva (where it was raining and cold) where the Salon International de Haute Horlogerie was opening its doors the next day Monday April 19...
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