GPHG 2026 Predictions: Rexhep Rexhepi for the Aiguille d’Or

The 26th Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève hands out its prizes on Saturday, November 7, at the Bâtiment des Forces Motrices, and 84 watches in 14 categories are still in contention. Breguet, last year’s Aiguille d’Or winner, sits this one out by rule, and no brand can take home more than two awards, so the top prize is more open than usual. Our vote goes to an independent who makes almost everything in his own workshops.

None of this is inside information. As we explained in our guide to how the GPHG works, the jury of 24 handles every finalist in person a few days before the ceremony, and the GPHG Academy’s votes count for a third of the result. What follows is simply how we’d vote, and why.

Rexhep Rexhepi Chronograph Flyback

The Chronograph category is stacked: Audemars Piguet’s Royal Oak RD#5 “150th Anniversary,” H. Moser & Cie., Louis Moinet, Parmigiani Fleurier, and TAG Heuer’s Monaco Evergraph are all in it. Rexhepi’s first flyback chronograph still stands out. The RRCHF runs on an entirely new hand-wound movement with an integrated chronograph and an instant minute counter, all inside a 38.8mm platinum case only 9.7mm thick.

The grand feu enamel dial is made in-house, and so are the cases and the hand-stitched straps. “For me, a watch is a performance,” Rexhepi writes in his GPHG entry. It is listed at CHF 150,000. We’d give it the Chronograph prize and the Aiguille d’Or, because nothing else on the list brings craft and engineering together in one object as well.

Ulysse Nardin x URWERK UR-FREAK

Complication is the category for strange ideas, and nothing on the list is stranger than the first collaboration between two independents. The UR-FREAK combines URWERK’s wandering hour satellite with Ulysse Nardin’s rotating Freak movement in a single in-house caliber, a three-hour rotating carousel inside a 44mm titanium case. It is self-winding, with 90 hours of reserve and a silicon escapement, at CHF 108,100.

Czapek’s Time Jumper and Lederer’s CIC 39 InVerto are serious rivals, but the UR-FREAK is the one watch that would have been impossible for either of its makers alone, and that’s reason enough to reward it. It also suits the month: URWERK has just launched the UR-300 Time Quantum and Ulysse Nardin the Freak [S Howlite].

Naoya Hida & Co. NH Type8A

Time Only pits Bvlgari’s 6.45mm Octo Finissimo 37, Chopard, Laurent Ferrier, Piaget, and Parmigiani Fleurier’s TORIC Petite Seconde against a 31mm steel watch from Tokyo. Naoya Hida’s NH Type8A has a new hand-wound Cal.2326SS, a three-piece screw-down case 8.9mm thick, and numerals engraved deep by hand.

Hida writes in his entry that he had wanted to build a small dress watch since he entered the industry in 1990. It costs CHF 18,000. It gets our vote as the most personal watch in the category, and the one that most rewards a close look.

Hermès H08 Squelette

The Sports category runs from Grand Seiko’s Spring Drive U.F.A. Ushio 300 Diver to IWC’s Big Pilot’s Watch Perpetual Calendar Ceralume, and our vote goes to the first skeleton H08. Hermès opens up the Manufacture Hermès H1978S in black PVD-coated titanium, drives it with a semi-square tungsten rotor that echoes the case, and sets Super-LumiNova numerals carved from solid blocks on top. The 39 x 42mm titanium case is water-resistant to 100 meters, and it is CHF 18,900.

It proves that a sports watch can be designed rather than just specified, the same reason we liked the new H08 Blanc and Bleu de Malte.

Konstantin Chaykin ThinKing Mystery

Mechanical Exception includes two chiming heavyweights, Blancpain’s Grande Double Sonnerie and Chopard’s L.U.C Grand Strike. We’d still give it to the ThinKing Mystery, a 41mm watch only 1.65mm thick that Chaykin calls the thinnest mechanical watch ever produced as an ultra-limited collection. Instead of stripping it bare, he added a mystery display on two sapphire discs and spread the balance across a single plane with a patented double balance. It is CHF 400,000. A new complication on a watch already at its physical limit is as exceptional as mechanics get.

King Seiko VANAC

The Challenge category caps prices at CHF 4,500, and to us, King Seiko’s titanium VANAC, Ref. HKF001, is the most complete watch in it. The 41mm, bezel-less case and integrated bracelet are titanium, the purple dial takes its lines from Tokyo’s highways at dawn, the self-winding movement stores 72 hours, and the watch is water-resistant to 100 meters. The GPHG lists it at CHF 3,760 including VAT, and it is $3,850 in the U.S., which is how it made our best luxury watches under $5,000.

All 84 finalists go on show at Geneva’s Musée d’Art et d’Histoire from October 30 through November 15, closed Mondays, and the results go up on gphg.org on the night. A prize settles nothing for good, but a GPHG win follows a watch for the rest of its life, all the way to the auction catalog. On November 7, we’ll find out how many of our picks the jury shares.

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Adrienne Faurote

Editor in Chief · Haute Time

As a former New Yorker, now a “Miamian,” Adrienne Faurote joined Haute Living in August of 2021. She currently serves as the Haute Media Group Editor-in-Chief, overseeing all editorial platforms within the Haute Media Group while also maintaining her role as Fashion, Jewelry & Watch Director. Prior to her position at Haute Living, Faurote was the Market Editor at Marie Claire Magazine US, amassing over ten years in the industry, becoming an authoritative voice in all things fashion, jewelry, and watches.