Last week, I came across an auction listing on Christie's for a Gérald Genta yellow gold, octagonal, sapphire-set automatic perpetual calendar. Lot no . 8 from The Dubai Edit Auction didn't exactly incite the specific rush I feel I constantly seek out from newly discovered material objects (you know, when the surge of adrenaline hits so hard, you feel like your heart is about to fall out of your mouth or when you get all wide-eyed and giddy and a little bit sweaty). But , maybe that's just me?

Nonetheless, I stopped scrolling as well as paused to take a careful look at a watch that, in my opinion, bore very little resemblance to anything traditionally "watchy. " Okay, it has a perpetual calendar on the dial, but it seemed more like a piece of antique jewelry, like something I would find in the vintage section at Fred Leighton or FD Gallery in NYC. This makes sense; Monsieur Genta trained as a jeweler in his 20s before embarking on his journey into watch design. Frankly, lot no . 8 is a little gaudy. But , I do feel a sense of respect for the design itself. It seems balanced in a way that gem-set watches often don't. While every single component of the watch is busy by definition, my guess is that it's also busy through design. It's opulent and also fantastical - after all, it was made for the Sultan of Brunei -- but the angles and lines along with embellishment are all somehow within perfect harmony. Like MC Escher's art or Martin Margiela's deconstruction in the 1990s, there's a lot going on, but staring at the watch doesn't make you go cross-eyed. In fact , it draws you in, begging for every little detail to be noticed in addition to studied. It can three-dimensional plus sculptural and kind of bonkers.
The watch has a 35mm octagonal case made of 18k platnium, and the bezel is set with baguette-cut sapphire stones and even features diamonds set on each corner of the octagon. The dial is actually mother associated with pearl along with four subsidiary dials indicating day, the actual month combined with leap year, date, together with phases of the moon on a blue lapis lazuli disc. It comes on an 18k yellow gold bracelet with a gold buckle and sold for $37, 000.

Of course , I immediately recognized the watch as a Genta design. The shape as well as configuration will be unmistakably Genta. But I needed to understand how the man revered for his minimalism went on to make such uniquely flamboyant, gem-set watches. How did the man who designed the particular Royal Oak and the Nautilus go on to create retrograde hour watches together with Disney characters on the switch? And why is there so little information about these pieces online when there is more than an encyclopedic amount of knowledge dedicated to Genta's contractual work for all the Swiss brands besides his own?
After spending an entire afternoon browsing online view forums : which I'm sure you can believe is an activity I reserve for desperate times rapid I decided to go straight to the source. I spoke with Evelyne Genta (wife and business partner from the late Gérald Genta and also founder regarding Gérald Genta Heritage) to find out why my endless Google searches delivered such a paucity of results. "Gérald designed every single piece, and so a lot of these watches were one-offs. In our factory, we were mostly makers of prototypes. inch She explained that although they did indeed make small runs involving serially produced watches, inches[they] were mostly made as one of one, using one customer in mind. very well
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Genta was catering to a clientele connected with sultans along with royals in the Middle East in addition to Asia: a demographic who else wanted unusual and ornate pieces having gemstones plus decorative flourishes. This custom business model enabled Genta to pass from the more conservative aesthetic he employed while designing for the Switzerland giants to entirely eccentric and often extravagant pieces of applied artwork.