Independent Watchmakers Win Big At GPHG 2026
Fine watchmaking’s biggest awards night gives niche brands and independent watchmakers a well-deserved spotlight.
Those in the watch business call the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève (GPHG) the Oscars of watchmaking, and the industry’s stars certainly showed out at the 2026 edition.
Held in Geneva on 7 November, the evening celebrated the year’s most exciting watches and the people who made them.
And if this was horology’s answer to the Academy Awards, the night belonged to its Wim Wenderses and Chloé Zhaos: the well-established and breakout independent brands and watchmakers who dominated the proceedings.
Rexhep Rexhepi took home the top prize, the Aiguille d’Or Grand Prix, for his Chronograph Flyback (RRCHF).
The watch brings together technical finesse, fine artisanship, and creative expression, qualities across every aspect of horology that make it a worthy winner.
This elegant sports watch runs on an in-house flyback chronograph movement of 320 components. It also has a Grand Feu enamel dial, made in Rexhepi’s own workshops, with smoked sapphire counters.
Karl-Friedrich Scheufele, co-president of family-owned Chopard and owner of the independent brand Ferdinand Berthoud, made his way to the stage several times.
Scheufele is an elder statesman of the industry and a long-standing advocate for the craft.
His Ferdinand Berthoud won the Tourbillon Watch Prize for the Chronomètre FB 2TV and the Chronometry Prize for the Naissance d’une Montre 3. Chopard’s L.U.C 1860 dress watch, meanwhile, won the Time Only Watch Prize.
Other independent names that scored big that evening included Parmigiani Fleurier (Tonda PF Chronographe Mystérieux, Chronograph Watch Prize), Cleguer (Inspiration One, Complication Watch Prize), and Dominique Renaud (Pulse60 Titanium Black, Horological Revelation Prize).
That said, the larger houses were well represented too.
Blancpain made a welcome return to the GPHG, and its Grande Double Sonnerie won the Mechanical Exception Watch Prize.
The watch took eight years to develop. It combines a grande sonnerie, petite sonnerie, and minute repeater with a fully integrated retrograde perpetual calendar and a flying tourbillon.
Audemars Piguet was another familiar name on stage.
The 151-year-old manufacture won the Calendar and Astronomy Watch Prize for the 150 Heritage, a platinum pocket watch with 30 complications.
It also won the Iconic Watch Prize for the Royal Oak “Jumbo” Extra-thin Selfwinding Flying Tourbillon Chronograph RD#5 “150th Anniversary”.
The full list of winners follows.
