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I n the world of watches, designs are typically attributed to the brand that makes them, while the people working behind the scenes remain mostly unknown to the collectors who sport their creations. But occasionally a watch designer’s reputation grows to the point where he or she cannot be ignored: No one in the history of watchmaking exemplifies this more than Gérald Genta, whose creations have earned him the moniker “The Picasso of Watches.” Without Genta, it’s safe to say that 20th-century watchmaking – and 21st-century watch collecting – wouldn’t be the same.
Gérald Charles Genta was born in 1931 in Geneva, Switzerland. He grew up immersed in the culture of watchmaking, and his passion for design – he was constantly sketching – led him to study jewelry design at the renowned École d’Art de Genève. Upon graduating in 1951, at just 20 years old, he joined Swiss watchmaker Universal Genève. When Universal Genève took on an important airline commission a few years later, Genta picked up what was supposed to be a relatively ordinary assignment. This small event began a chain reaction that would change the course of watchmaking forever.
Looking at the watches he created over the course of his career – many of them genuine household names – is a great way to gain a better understanding of Genta’s life, evolving design approach and unmatched impact on 20th-century watchmaking.
Genta’s first challenge came just a few years into his time with Universal Genève. During the height of the Jet Age, the widely respected company was commissioned by Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) to create a watch for its pilots, who often traveled over the North Pole and required something to withstand the Earth’s magnetic field. The result, released in 1954, was the antimagnetic Polarouter – a tool watch that nonetheless embodies a certain midcentury panache and elegance that characterize Genta’s early period.
Renamed the Universal Genève Polerouter in 1955, aesthetically the watch is defined by its twisted-lug case and its tuxedo-style dials (available in various color combinations). Most models feature micro-rotor movements, though there are some early examples with bumper-style automatic movements too. UG continued to iterate on the design for decades, even creating some funky Polerouter divers in the 1970s. The most iconic examples today are the original style with a black dial and silver rehaut, those with asymmetrical date windows and the solid-gold references with matching gold dials.
While vintage Polerouters are quite attainable on the secondary market – offering a wonderful entrypoint into important watch designs – only the rarest, most historically significant models show up at auction at Sotheby’s. What models do make it to the block can be found here alongside past results.
Whatever flavor of Polerouter you choose, there are few watches more representative of this era of watchmaking, and they all offer an early taste of what was to come from Genta over the coming years.
In 1959, Genta began doing freelance work, branching out from his home base at Universal Genève. His first project of note was with one of the world’s most famous and well-respected watchmakers: Omega. At the time, the brand’s flagship collection was the Constellation, a series of three-handed chronometer dress watches, and Omega wanted to refresh them as the 1960s approached.
There are two main families of Genta Constellations, and each of them pushes ideas introduced with his Polerouter into new directions. The so-called pie pan Constellations are defined by their unique dials, which have flat central sections and sloped edges, reminiscent of a pastry dish. Often these are paired with arched-lug cases and beads-of-rice bracelets that today offer a fully Mad Men vibe (Don Draper sported a black crosshair-dial Omega Seamaster De Ville and Roger Sterling a tuxedo-dial Tudor Oyster-Prince, both of which took clear design cues from Genta’s creation). Many pie pans also feature dramatic faceted markers that look like sharks’ teeth, adding even more personality.
The second type of Constellation features curved, barrel-shaped cases with rounded sided and flat tops and bottoms. These are complemented by relatively pared-down dials and tile bracelets that seem to preface Genta’s era-defining aesthetic of the 1970s.
Constellations appear at auction somewhat more frequently than Polerouters do, but they’re not exactly regulars on the Sotheby’s circuit. Browse past and future lots here.
The 1970s saw Gérald Genta skyrocket from the next big thing to a living legend. One of Switzerland’s most respected watchmakers, Audemars Piguet had fallen on hard times as orders for highly complicated mechanical watches slowed throughout the 1960s. In an extraordinary leap of faith, Genta was who CEO Georges Golay called to save the brand with a bold new design. The rest, as they say, is history.
The Audemars Piguet Royal Oak debuted with the reference 5402 Jumbo models in 1972 to much confusion and not a small bit of anger from customers and the industry alike. An expensive luxury watch, with a high-end automatic movement, in an oversized octagonal case with visible screws, on a geometric bracelet, all made of humble stainless steel? It is tough to overstate just how insane this must have sounded in a world of gold perpetual calendars and emerging, cheap quartz timekeepers.
But it didn’t take long for the market to catch up to Genta and his ideas, with the Royal Oak truly taking off in the mid 1970s. It has been in continuous production ever since, with countless interactions and references produced during that time. They can be found on the wrists of everyone from Jay-Z to Arnold Schwarzenegger to John Mayer, all of whom have since collaborated with AP on their very own Royal Oak models too. It completely changed perceptions of what it meant for a watch to be high end, and is one of the most desirable watches sold at Sotheby’s today.
In May 2022, a genuine piece of watchmaking history hit the auction block at Sotheby’s Geneva: Gérald Genta’s own Audemars Piguet Royal Oak. Not only did it belong to the man who designed this icon, but it also features an all-steel case and bracelet paired with a yellow-gold bezel – a combination thought to be entirely unique. The two-tone watch quadrupled its high estimate at 2.1 million CHF and is likely one of the most historically important watches still in a private collection.
Imitation being the sincerest form of flattery, Patek Philippe took notice as their competitor’s Royal Oak redefined luxury watchmaking before their eyes. Supposedly, executives took Genta to lunch to discuss commissioning a similar watch, and the designer pulled out a pen and drew the initial concept for a Patek Philippe dive watch right there on a napkin. Whether or not its origin story is apocryphal, the Nautilus has upheld a legacy all its own since it debuted in 1976.
The Patek Philippe Nautilus is the Royal Oak’s softer-edged cousin. While the Royal Oak was inspired by vintage diving helmets, Genta’s first reference 3700 Nautilus was informed by portholes on transatlantic ocean liners. Its bezel and dial are not quite round, and its bracelet has something of a biomorphic quality to it, looking at once mechanical and organic. Both luxury sports watches have remained in production for decades and have been adapted to suit nearly every kind of complication their respective watchmakers cook up. Today’s Nautilus watches retain the original’s basic design language as an archetype for a number of different models, many of which are extremely collectible.
No watch embodies the Nautilus hype more than the special reference 5711 produced to commemorate the 170th anniversary of Patek Philippe and Tiffany & Co. working together. Only 170 of the watches were produced, and spotting their Tiffany Blue dials on the wrists of celebs like Leonardo DiCaprio and LeBron James has becomes something of a sport amongst eagle-eyed enthusiasts.
Genta wasn’t quite done making high-end sport watches with integrated bracelets. Around the same time he designed the Nautilus, he also worked with IWC Schaffhausen on a new version of their purpose-built Ingenieur watch to give it a sportier feel and tougher construction. The result was the Ingenieur SL, which was also released in 1976 and somewhat splits the difference between the audacious Royal Oak and Nautilus watches and the Ingenieur’s more utilitarian roots.
Drawing on recurring elements – like the bezel with visible screws, the textured dial, the integrated bracelet and even the antimagnetic protection inside the case – the Ingenieur is in some ways a synthesis of the first 20 years of Genta’s experience designing watches. In 2023, IWC released an updated Ingenieur collection, returning the watch to its roots with a Genta-inspired design after a few other experiments. It’s evidence that Genta’s importance and influence are more present than ever, and watchmakers have clearly taken notice.
Their higher value and increased collectibility means IWC Ingenieurs appear at auction with more frequency than Constellations and Polerouters. That said, they’re unlikely to be on offer every season. Check here to see any upcoming lots and browse past results.
Although the Royal Oak, Nautilus and Ingenieur receive most of the attention today, they represent only a period of Gérald Genta’s total body of work. Far from a one-trick pony, he was unafraid to evolve his ideas along with popular culture. Just as he adapted to the elegance of the 1960s giving way to the bold sportiness of the 1970s, so too did he greet the brash, maximalist design of the 1980s.
Around 1985, Cartier invited Genta to redesign an idiosyncratic watch first made 50 years prior for the Pasha of Marakesh. Genta’s Pasha de Cartier takes the model’s basic shape and layout – its round, nearly bulbous case shape, Vendôme lugs and oversized crown – then turns everything up to 11. The cases have large dial openings and the bracelets are shiny and jewelry-like, while a small chain connecting the crown to the case makes the Genta references unmistakable from a distance. Some of the complicated pieces have eye-catching crowns and grate-style protectors over the dials.
While the model remained mostly dormant through the ’90s and early 2000s, the Pasha was revived in 2020 with a star-studded campaign including the likes of Rami Malek and Troye Sivan, recalling its glory days as a high-life status symbol.
Gérald Genta started his own eponymous watch brand in 1969, well before the Royal Oak or Nautilus were conceived. This brand specialized in producing extremely complicated watches with very idiosyncratic designs and complications, with the most famous examples being the Disney-licensed jump-house watches from the 1980s (especially those featuring Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck, which make frequent appearances at auction) and the chiming watches and calendar watches of the 1990s, whose geometric cases are reminiscent of Mayan temples. He sold the brand to Bulgari in the early 2000s, laying the foundation for that brand’s horological rise over the last two decades. Today, LVMH, which also owns Bulgari, is resurrecting the Gérald Genta brand under its own name, much to the delight of collectors.
Never one to sit still, Genta immediately founded another brand, Gerald Charles, utilizing his middle name for a hint of differentiation. He worked as the head designer at that brand until his death in 2011, and it continues to operate without him at the helm.
Ultimately, Gérald Genta’s most lasting legacy can be found in the watches that don’t bear his name on their dials. His iconoclastic approach to design in an industry that historically values tradition and continuity might well have saved a number of key watchmakers during the Quartz Crisis and given us some of the most beloved and most collected watches today. It is genuinely impossible to imagine a contemporary watch landscape without Genta’s creations and equally hard to look at new watches being released without noticing echoes of his vision.
