{"id":96618,"date":"2022-12-23T09:47:43","date_gmt":"2022-12-23T09:47:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.watchpro.com\/?p=96618"},"modified":"2022-12-23T09:48:19","modified_gmt":"2022-12-23T09:48:19","slug":"how-important-is-the-grand-prix-dhorlogerie-de-geneve","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.watchpro.com\/how-important-is-the-grand-prix-dhorlogerie-de-geneve\/","title":{"rendered":"How important is the Grand Prix d\u2019Horlogerie de Gen\u00e8ve?"},"content":{"rendered":"

After his stint on the jury of this year\u2019s Grand Prix d\u2019Horlogerie de Gen\u00e8ve, Robin Swithinbank asks whether there is still a place in today\u2019s watch industry for insider back-slapping.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Not a single brown envelope. No winks, no nudges, no promises of all-expenses-paid trips to desert islands. Nothing.<\/p>\n

Despite my best efforts to publicise my appointment to the jury of this year\u2019s Grand Prix d\u2019Horlogerie de Gen\u00e8ve (GPHG), not one of the nominated brands attempted to buy my vote. I mean, hello? Is this thing on?<\/p>\n

The GPHG attracts all sorts of criticism. Apex predators generally do. That it\u2019s somehow on the make is usually right up there, this being the easiest accusation you can level at anything or anyone if you\u2019re looking to undermine their authority in double-quick time.<\/p>\n

Yes, money does change hands. Brands pay thousands of francs to enter and for the privilege of being shortlisted, and the CHF 5,000 it costs to become a \u2018friend\u2019 of the GPHG looks a bit washy.<\/p>\n

But is that not the price of funding a non-profit and its catalog of international activities created to serve an industry\u2019s purposes (as well as its own)?<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not really sure, but if there is dirty money sloshing around, not a penny of it came my way.<\/p>\n

Jury membership was offered with a fee of precisely zero, although for full disclosure the GPHG did pay for me to get to Geneva and back and put me up while I was there.<\/p>\n

All I got beyond that were a few emails and LinkedIn messages from shortlisted brands offering to explain their contraptions in a bit more detail, should I need it, which I might have done, but chose to ignore.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Rob Swithinbank (center) on stage at this year’s GPHG ceremony.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Beyond talk of under-the-table dealing comes the question of whether the GPHG actually matters.<\/p>\n

Does it?<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t imagine punters are any more likely to buy a TAG Heuer Monaco because it won the Icon prize this year. But then it\u2019s not that it doesn\u2019t matter at all either, even to the big boys.<\/p>\n

See Bulgari and chief executive Jean-Christophe Babin\u2019s speech at this year\u2019s event in which he made it clear he wasn\u2019t happy relinquishing the title his company acquired 12 months ago.<\/p>\n

And of course it matters to small independents.<\/p>\n

MB&F\u2019s Max B\u00fcsser struggled to hold back the tears on picking up this year\u2019s Aiguille d\u2019Or. Try telling him the GPHG is just a weird-looking mantlepiece trinket awarded by a society of navel-gazers.<\/p>\n

What about vote fiddling? From where I was sitting, the voting process felt robust.<\/p>\n

As jurors, we were invited to score six watches in each of 15 categories, 10 for the best and then a sliding scale down to 1, before passing our secret ballots to an independent notary from Geneva.<\/p>\n

The Swiss are sticklers, you see.<\/p>\n

If the GPHG\u2019s mission is to see the watch industry elevated around the world, the scope should be widened to acknowledge relevance and impact. The Oscars, to which the GPHG is often compared, faces the same issue, garlanding obscure art-house films no one goes to see while overlooking the blockbusters that prop up the industry.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If the vote were fiddled, we wouldn\u2019t have seen some of this year\u2019s results, kept from the jury until they were announced.<\/p>\n

How would Audemars Piguet, the GPHG\u2019s richest participating brand, have walked away empty-handed in the 50th anniversary year of the Royal Oak if this were the case?<\/p>\n

Herm\u00e8s\u2019s double win for the same watch gives us an idea, too.<\/p>\n

The blind vote meant jurors had no way of \u2018balancing\u2019 the results.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Parmigiani’s Tonda could and perhaps should have won several awards.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In theory, the same could \u2014 and probably should \u2014 have happened to the five-times-nominated Parmigiani Tonda, but for reasons I can\u2019t compute, it didn\u2019t. But then I don\u2019t understand how anyone voted for Liz Truss (prime minister of the UK for 42 days), either.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s just how an open vote works.<\/p>\n

I do wish the GPHG were more open, though, at least in the sense of a bigger playing field.<\/p>\n

The absence of so many of the industry\u2019s big names, including seven of the top 10 by turnover, narrows the process considerably and undermines its credibility to a degree.<\/p>\n

But before we go thinking this is entirely the GPHG\u2019s fault, remember for a second that you\u2019d be hard pressed to find someone there who wouldn\u2019t welcome Rolex, Patek Philippe, Richard Mille et al into the fold.<\/p>\n

Personally, I find the \u2018we can only lose\u2019 argument offered by those absent friends rather vain, and a symptom of the strange mix of arrogance, fear and unbending conservatism that defines so much of watchmaking.<\/p>\n

Then again, a category shake-up almost certainly wouldn\u2019t go amiss, starting with the Aiguille d\u2019Or itself. Not to take anything away from MB&F\u2019s magnificent winner, but this is reserved for the \u201cbest overall watch\u201d from those nominated and the one \u201cdeemed the most representative of the watch industry as a whole\u201d.<\/p>\n

For some, a recherch\u00e9, ultra-low-volume watch may be that, but I\u2019m not sure how \u2014 and apparently neither are Cartier or Omega.<\/p>\n

The most singular, most watchmakery watch? Sure. But if the GPHG\u2019s mission is to see the watch industry elevated around the world, the scope should be widened to acknowledge relevance and impact.<\/p>\n

The Oscars, to which the GPHG is often compared, face the same issue, garlanding obscure art-house films no one goes to see while overlooking the blockbusters that prop up the industry.<\/p>\n

And why no prizes for design?<\/p>\n

Last year\u2019s Deloitte Swiss Watch Industry Study showed that design came out as one of the top three considerations behind a watch purchase in nine of the world\u2019s 11 largest watch markets (I struggle to believe the Chinese and the French who said sustainability mattered more).<\/p>\n

In the UK, design is number one, while where it\u2019s knocked into second place, it\u2019s by the greatest of purchasing motivators: price.<\/p>\n

Mechanical ingenuity, novel complications, finishing \u2014 nothing of that ilk featured in Deloitte\u2019s survey. And yet at the GPHG, they are foremost.<\/p>\n

OK, so there\u2019s the Petite Aiguille, but as the name suggests, it\u2019s very much the junior award.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>We could keep picking this apart for hours, but I\u2019m out of words.<\/p>\n

Yes, the gender distinctions feel increasingly limiting. Why on earth is there still a tourbillon prize? No award for all-conquering sports watches? Are we really still talking about clocks?<\/p>\n

And as for the tradition of inviting the Grand Prix winner to the following year\u2019s jury?<\/p>\n

That should be scrapped before the accusation of brands marking their own homework sticks.<\/p>\n

But, no matter. I can\u2019t help feel the GPHG remains a hugely valuable enterprise, not unlike watch fairs.<\/p>\n

One for all and all for one, I suppose. The GPHG is an industry barometer and a signal to the world of this industry\u2019s might and value. All power to it.<\/p>\n

And yet not one person has left a bag stuffed full of cash at my door inviting me to say so.<\/p>\n

Anyone there\u2026?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After his stint on the jury of this year\u2019s Grand Prix d\u2019Horlogerie de Gen\u00e8ve, Robin Swithinbank asks whether there is still a place in today\u2019s watch industry for insider back-slapping.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":96619,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false},"categories":[6,7024,5],"tags":[5081,9100,11089],"newspack_lstngs_evt":[],"newspack_lstngs_gen":[],"newspack_lstngs_mkt":[],"newspack_lstngs_plc":[],"acf":[],"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"WATCHPRO","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/www.watchpro.com","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.watchpro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96618"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.watchpro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.watchpro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.watchpro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.watchpro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96618"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.watchpro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96618\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.watchpro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/96619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.watchpro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.watchpro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.watchpro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96618"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_lstngs_evt","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.watchpro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_lstngs_evt?post=96618"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_lstngs_gen","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.watchpro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_lstngs_gen?post=96618"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_lstngs_mkt","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.watchpro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_lstngs_mkt?post=96618"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_lstngs_plc","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.watchpro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_lstngs_plc?post=96618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}