The watch named “Esmeralda Tourbillon à Secret” is a one-off tribute by Girard-Perregaux to a watch built by Constant Girard-Perregaux, the brand’s founder. It is sumptuously decorated throughout, and has a tourbillon movement based on Constant’s innovative design in which the bridges were placed in view as decorative elements. It is “Secret” in that the…
Laureato by Girard-Perregaux returned to the market in 2016, and this year at SIHH, the brand presented the Laureato Chronograph in 38 and 42 mm sizes, with a range of dial colours and strap or bracelet options: steel or pink gold, three dial colours, silver, black and dark blue. It is slim at 11.9 mm…
Girard-Perregaux’s CEO Antonio Calce says that Laureato will be fundamental to the brand’s future. There’s no doubt that this sports watch is perfectly in tune with contemporary style, and it has distinctive looks, with its shaped integrated bracelet and octagonal bezel. It may have suffered, over the years, its similarity to other watches designed in…
In the Cat’s Eye collection, Girard-Perregaux speaks exclusively to women, with watches featuring diamond-setting and horizontal or vertical oval cases. The new Cat’s Eye Celestial has a mother-of-pearl dial with a radial guilloché finish, and a large moon phase display with a deep blue aventurine night sky. The large moon disc is almost 9 mm…
The new Girard-Perregaux 1966 WW.TC – World-Wide Time Control – presented at SIHH in January 2017, changes everything with respect to the previous version. The chronograph function has been removed, and the second crown at 9 o’clock, absent in the 2013 version, has been reintroduced and provides a distinctive look to the watch. The dial…
It’s as if some brands had giant ghosts drifting through the corridors of their Manufactures, the ghosts of dead watchmakers calling the people there, saying “remember us, your glorious past!” They are ghosts that make it difficult to design watches that belong to the future. For a brand like Girard-Perregaux, the ghost is very big,…
The 1966 Skeleton by Girard-Perregaux is one of the watches celebrating the company’s 225th anniversary. The case in pink gold, 38 mm in diameter and 9.27 thick, is perfectly dimensioned for the 1966 movement which is 30 mm in diameter. Notable features of the exposed movement are the balance at 12 o’clock, the rhodium-plated gear…
The Girard-Perregaux Esmeralda Tourbillon, reference 99275-52-000-BA6E, is based on a watch in the brand’s Museum collection shown in the photo below. The new piece is not a limited edition, but only one or two watches can be produced every month, so it’s never going to be a high-production watch. Each piece is assembled by a…
Girard-Perregaux‘s numerous connections with Italy are exemplified by Laureato, a watch whose name was suggested by the company’s Italian distributor in 1975. It is the Italian name of the film The Graduate starring Dustin Hoffman. Those years were the time in which octagonal bezels and integrated bracelets were arriving from Gerald Genta (Audemars Piguet Royal…
Girard-Perregaux launched the Cat’s Eye women’s watch in 2004. It is hallmarked by the oval case, horizontal or vertical. This year’s models, in steel, steel and gold, and pink gold, have a case with 60 brilliant-cut diamonds on the narrow bezel, with dials in fan-shaped sunray or guilloché decoration. The hour markings comprise two or…
This year marks Girard-Perregaux’s 225th anniversary, and the brand have presented Place Girardet, a watch named after the location in La Chaux-de-Fonds where the company was founded and still operates. Girard-Perregaux have taken the idea of a limited edition to a new level: not a numbered series from 1 to 225, but from 1791 to…
The Girard-Perregaux Competizione chronograph is made in two variants, Stradale in steel, Circuito in carbon. As suggested by the name, they are road-racing-inspired watches, with piston-shaped chronograph pushers, dials with three subdials, and tachymeter scales on the Stradale versions. The Circuito is the sportiest, with titanium-carbon case and carbon-effect leather strap. Both are powered by…
The Chamber of Wonders series began in 2015, with intricately-painted dials. Three new pieces have been introduced for 2016, all limited editions of 18 pieces. They are based on the Girard-Perregaux 1966 pink gold watch, with in-house self-winding GP03300-0060 movement. This runs at 28,800 vibrations per hour, 4 Hertz, has 205 components: 26 jewels, and a power reserve of…
At a time at which many watchmaking companies are suffering to a degree – Swatch Group will be announcing a 12% drop in sales for the first half of 2016 for the group, with a 50-60% drop in profits – entry-level watches in 1960s style seem to represent an ever-popular option (other examples include the…
Yesterday, Girard-Perregaux announced that they will be returning to Salon International de la Haute Horlogerie in 2017. This fair, which takes place every year in January, is run by Fondation de la Haute Horlogerie. “As a founding member of the Fondation de la Haute Horlogerie, Girard-Perregaux naturally regains its position alongside the most prestigious brands…
This year’s version of the Neo-Tourbillon by Girard-Perregaux is similar to the 2014 version with gold case, but the use of titanium with black DLC makes it even more modern in looks, a dark stage on which the lovely silvery tourbillon acts out its magic, apparently floating in mid-air. The curved bridges are a modern…
The Vintage 1945 collection has a long history, as its name suggests, and the Vintage 1945 Small Second by Girard-Perregaux is a modern version of the original Art Deco design, with pink gold and steel case, applied numerals on dial and dauphine faceted hands. In comparison with most Girard-Perregaux watches, this has a relatively accessible…
Girard-Perregaux first introduced the Cat’s Eye collection in 2004, and since then many versions have been produced, all featuring the horizontal oval dial shape. The case, 35.4 mm across and 30.4 mm from top to bottom, is a composition of ellipses, one framing the circular date window, another for the small seconds on the left,…
Many prestigious watch brands are engaged in the quest to introduce their products to a wider audience, principally by widening the price fork downwards. One of the ways this can be done is to use quartz movements, and examples include Longines, Corum and Glashütte Original; another way is to use steel instead of gold or…
Company profile: The origins of Girard-Perregaux are conventionally dated to 1791, when Jean-François Bautte signed his first watches. He became well-known for his extra-thin watch models, and set up a company in Geneva with the idea of having all the crafts involved in watchmaking under one roof, at that time an innovative concept. Working separately,…