Forgotten Heroes - Gerald Genta

With this perverse title I would like to indicate that, although Genta is, on the one hand, very well-known as the designer of famous and iconic watches, including the Nautilus Patek model, Royal Oak AP or Ingenieur IWC , on the other hand he is little-known as the one who, even in the greatest depression caused by the so-called quartz revolution, not only believed in the rebirth of mechanical watches, but was also their creator in terms of mechanisms and designs for many other brands, some of them very surprising.

But first things first, we need to go back to 1931, to the city that is synonymous with Swissness, a city very strongly associated with this country and often mentioned in the same breath as Zurich, that is, Geneva.

It was there that Gerald Genta was born and from practically his youngest years he showed his passion for design, and he began to create his first drawings, sketches and paintings as a very young boy. After graduating from the Swiss Jewellery School, he allegedly could not find work in his profession and, having thrown his tools into the river, decided to be his own boss.

In reality, he was employed by the famous Universal Geneve SA (their famous micro-rotor watches are still sought after by collectors today) and quickly acquired watchmaking skills, designing his first watch when he was only 23 years old.

His incredibly rich and fruitful professional life was interwoven with watch designs made for various companies, both very well-known ones producing exclusive timepieces, as well as those producing them on a mass and cheap scale, but also his own designs under the Gerald Genta brand and painting works resulting from his still childish nature and longing for a passion for drawing and painting.

He was uncompromising when it came to discussions about his own vision, one of them being long discussions with Gianni Bulgari and his brother, whose opinion after seeing Genta's drawings presenting the Bulgari-Bulgari model was decidedly negative. Genta is said to have stated that many brand owners have no vision of what the brand should look like, what its DNA and specificity are. Ultimately, Gerald's repeated trips to Rome paid off for both parties, and the aforementioned collection was a market success.

It was similar with orders from Timex (yes, Genta designed a series of cheap watches that were sold in several million pieces) or Seiko (limited series of 5,000 pieces), which, on the one hand, were quickly and successfully sold, but on the other hand resulted in the necessity of disputes with the industry, which blamed Gerald for betraying his ideals and supporting the foreign (including Japanese) watch industry.

Of course, we all know Genta's designs from companies such as Patek Philippe, AP, JlC, IWC, Cartier or Hermes, but for example in his early years he also worked for Omega in 1953, taking part in the development of the Constellation model and later the Seamaster and others.

It was not until 1969 that he opened his own manufacture under his own name, where he created beautiful and complex models such as the famous " Octo Grande Sonnerie Tourbillion" and the "Grande Sonnerie Retro" designed in 1994. Ultimately, the company was bought by Bulgari in 1999, and the master Genta himself, having become quite obvious and unable to resist creating something of his own, opened another company in 2011 under the Gerald Charles brand, but his somewhat premature death interrupted the development of this venture.

One of the more interesting projects is of course the Royal Oak, whose story is worth telling. Namely, in 1970, during the quartz revolution, when most of the industry was fighting for survival, the master Genta designed for Audemars Piguet in one night an innovative and downright iconoclastic steel watch for those times with a very unusual, technical style (inspired by the sea, and specifically by the appearance of the gun ports of the battleship HMS Royal Oak).

A style that arouses enormous controversy, considered by many to be ugly and doomed to market failure.

A style that turned out to be not only a real hit and a sales workhorse for AP over time, but which remains an icon of the style and DNA of this manufacturer's collection to this day.

The beginnings were not sweet, both in terms of the reception of the watch's design itself, but also in the production sphere, as they required very large investments in machinery, which not only questioned the financial future of the AP, but also the sales price, as the steel AP was one and a half times more expensive than the gold Calatrava, but also four times more expensive than the steel Daytona.

The first to be delighted with the new model were the Italians, then came inquiries from other countries and today, today we already know the history of the Royal Oak.

In turn, somewhat envious of AP's success, Patek turns to Gerald Genta with a commission to design a steel sports watch, and so in 1976 the Nautilus saw the light of day. A watch that, probably inspired by history, Patek Philippe advertises with the slogan: "One of the most expensive watches in the world is made of steel."

To conclude and sum up this extraordinary story of the life and work of the great Gerald Genta (it could probably be much longer), I will quote another great figure from an industry so close to our hearts, the founder of the Antiquorum auction house, Osvaldo Patrizzi, who quite rightly considered Gérald Genta to be one of the people who successfully saved the Swiss watch industry from collapse.

He used to say that Genta, completely against the trends and contrary to current fashion, created a watch with automatic winding and a minute repeater in 1981, but he stood his ground.

Watches with this level of complication were previously reserved for brands like Patek Philippe, Audemars Piguet and Vacheron Constantin, and were rather successful in the 1950s.

Later (as it turns out, wrongly) it was decided that there was no demand for such expensive designs, the price of which was due to the difficulty of the mechanisms, and the rest was done in by the moods of the quartz revolution.

Just one year later, in 1982, Genta surprised the market again by presenting its trademark octagonal model at the Basel trade fair (this time featuring a minute repeater and a perpetual calendar).

Genta pioneered a new way of viewing the industry, not through the prism of the Far East’s flood of cheap, mass-produced digital production, but through the prism of watches that enthusiasts, connoisseurs and collectors desired.

That is why it is important for us to remember this vision, because thanks to people like the great master Genta, we can enjoy our passion today.

Darek Chlastawa