Expert community votes for independents.

Not only do independent watchmakers enjoy approval from the collectors who buy their watches, they also receive encouragement from the expert community's favorable assessment of their work. The creations of independent watchmakers are particularly helpful to the community of journalists and bloggers, who generate attractive content to keep the public up to date on the crème de la crème of watchmaking excellence.

This is undoubtedly one of the most effective means to promote the watch industry as a whole. One of the central events in the industry's calendar is the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève (GPHG): the largest and most influential contest of watchmaking excellence. 

The horological mastery demonstrated by independent watchmakers has been welcomed by the jury of the GPHG, where a significant percentage of the prizes are awarded to independents. However, we should acknowledge that the year 2021 was disappointing in this regard, when only one of the prolific independents won an award.

The prizewinning indie watchmaker was Bernhard Lederer, whose Central Impulse Chronometer was judged worthy of the Innovation Prize. There was another watch which claimed the Calendar and Astronomy Watch Prize: the CVDK Planetarium Eise Eisinga by the brand Christiaan Van Der Klaauw.

But seeing as Mr. Van Der Klaauw has since retired, the brand he founded can hardly be seen as the workshop of an independent watchmaker it once was. GPHG 2022 was far more generous to the independents. The up-and-coming French watchmaker Sylvain Pinaud was awarded the Horological Revelation Prize for the Origine wristwatch typical of this watchmaker's product line.

It was a time-only manually wound model, where the watchmaker made the movement's inventive architecture and finishing the main highlights. The Men's Watch Prize was taken by the independent watchmaker Rexhep Rexhepi, who entered the contest with his Chronomètre Contemporain II.

An exceptional level of ingenuity, functionality, complication, along with a refined and thorough finishing were displayed by the 1941 Grönograaf Tantalum watch entered by Tim and Bart Grönefeld, who the jury of the GPHG 2022 awarded the Chronograph Watch Prize.

The independent Finnish watchmaker Kari Voutilainen entered the competition with his Voutilainen Ji-Ku. Thanks to its exquisite dial created by Tatsuo Kitamura using the Japanese Saiei Maki-e and Somata Zaiku lacquering techniques, this watch picked up the Artistic Crafts Watch Prize.

Needless to say, the thorough finishing on the movement also played in this watch's favor — an area of specialization that Kari Voutilainen is renowned for. The list of prizewinning timepieces by prominent independents at the GPHG 2022 was rounded out by the Calendar and Astronomy Watch Prize for the Anywhere watch. It was created by the Krayon brand founded by Rémi Maillat.

Maillat is one of few independents who mark their watches with a brand name they came up with alongside their own name. This practice certainly leaves him with the opportunity to relaunch his career if the brand ever ends up in a difficult financial situation, and he's forced to sell up.

These things happen, and we know a few names (a few too many): independent watchmakers who effectively lost the right to use their own name as a brand on a watch dial when they ran into problems running their own businesses.

Nevertheless, Mr. Maillat's seemingly cautious approach, although he could have another reason, doesn't seem to be necessary. Especially when launching a brand. A similar tactic with brand naming was used by a watchmaker we've already mentioned here, Rexhep Rexhepi. 

In 2012, he launched his own enterprise under the brand name Akrivia, although Rexhepi has developed a preference for marking watches with his own name in recent years. This creates a sense of confusion, including with how the watchmaker understands his own strategy.

This sense of confusion only grew after his brother Xhevdet Rexhepi, who works with Rexhep, announced he was going to make his own watches under his own name. He's been working on the project to develop Minute Inerte wristwatches with a clever jumping minute hand that waits for the second hand to start.

It looks very promising, especially given that Xhevdet has managed to forge his own style — both in terms of the dial's design and the movement's design. The latter is particularly valuable. The project has yet to be completed. Xhevdet Rexhepi is presumably still working on the prototype he shared photos of via Instagram in December 2023. 

Let's return to the prizes awarded to independents at the GPHG. Their prize yield in 2023 wasn't as generous as the bumper harvest a year earlier, but it was still impressive. One of the prizes ended up in the hands of Kari Voutilainen again. This time, he won in the category of Men's Complication Watch.

The new Voutilainen World Timer wristwatch looks like a new definition of design for this watchmaker. Voutilainen adapted the accented cushion shape that showcased on his Voutilainen TP1 pocket watch, created in partnership with his daughter Venla for Only Watch 2019.

The Voutilainen TP1 was a time-only pocket watch based on a vintage movement (when using base movements, Voutilainen tends to rely on LeCoultre movements as ébauches). Apart from its cushion-shaped steel case, the new Voutilainen World Timer also has world time function, a manually wound in-house movement, an impeccable guilloché dial, outstanding hands à la Breguet…

And an astronomical price tag of CHF 198,000. Note that this watch doesn't have a tourbillon, which would justify such a high price. The increase in retail prices for watches by independents appears to be a response to the premium they've missed out amid explosive growth in sales prices on the auction market. They have a point.

The Horological Revelation Prize created to acknowledge new brands that have gotten off to a particularly successful start went to the independents again in 2023. The latest prizewinner was the independent watchmaker Simon Brette, an engineer and movement constructor by profession, who has previously worked with Jean-François Mojon (founder of Chronode), as well as the brands MCT and MB&F.

Chronomètre Artisans Subscription Edition was the watch that won him the prize at the GPHG 2023. It was also Simon Brette's first watch, and he managed to take it to an impressively high level. This really is an awesome start. You could say that this watch was conceived as a treasure trove of temptations to entice well-versed collectors.

Here, you can find a solid gold dial engraved with a textured "dragon scales" pattern by hand, mirror-polished hands and concave screws heads, an openworked time-setting mechanism and wheels on the dial side, a minute track with Arabic numerals reminiscent of A. Lange & Söhne, and polished steel tourbillon-type flat conical bridge bars.

And on top of all that, the movement has a symmetrical construction with twin barrels, "wolf teeth" gearing on the crown wheel and the two mainspring barrel wheels, a sprung ratchet built into the crown wheel, chamfered edges with precisely polished inner corners, and gold chatons — not even for stones but for the screws.

You get the sense that Simon Brette gathered all the sweetest treats he could find or think of and put it all in his watch. Finally, the Chronograph Watch Prize at the GPHG 2023 went to Petermann Bédat. This brand may not belong to the group of independent watchmakers by some strict definitions, because it has not one but two frontmen: Gaël Petermann and Florian Bédat. 

Nevertheless, the brand is essentially the result of a partnership between two independent watchmakers. The Chronographe Rattrapante which Petermann Bédat entered the GPHG 2023 with is the brand's second development.

Their first watch was the Ref. 1967 Deadbeat Seconds, where they implemented the deadbeat seconds function with a two-sided anchor secondary escapement going-train system.

In the Chronographe Rattrapante, they recreated a classic version of the high-class split-seconds chronograph caliber with the chronograph mechanism on the back of the movement, which is equipped with a split-seconds mechanism. In other words: exactly how it was done in classic early split-seconds chronograph pocket watches.

Unfortunately, the split-seconds mechanism is almost completely concealed under the dial, but still, the complicated construction and outstanding final finishing of the openworked chronograph mechanism more than makes up for this.

Previosly (part I)

Credits taken from: www.gphg.org