News After twice winning the supreme accolade of the Geneva Watchmaking Grand Prix, Vacheron Constantin has won the Watch of the Year Prize awarded by the magazine Montres Passion.
Under the presidency of Kenan Tegin, the jury of the 2007 Watch of the Year Prize – the fourteenth to date – selected the contemporary bi-retrograde Patrimony model by Vacheron Constantin, remarking on its “classicism and modernity” both in technical and aesthetic terms, as well as its “absolute elegance”. The trophy was presented to Juan-Carlos Torres, CEO of the Geneva firm, on 1st November in Geneva. The oldest watch manufactory still in activity which celebrated its 250th anniversary in 2005 thus adds to its laurels, which include two Geneva Watchmaking Grand Prix awards in 2001 and 2005, and follows in the footsteps of other prestigious prize winners: Cartier, Chopard and Piaget, who have all won the prize twice, and Jaeger-LeCoultre, Blancpain, Patek Philippe, Girard-Perregaux, Corum, Breguet and Rodolphe.
Two other habitués of end-of-the-year watchmaking prizes came second and third. The runner-up was François-Paul Journe, another two-times winner of the Geneva Watchmaking Grand Prix (2004 and 2006), with its Octa Automatique Lune, while third place went to Jaeger-LeCoultre – winner of the first edition of the Watch of the Year in 1994 – for its Duomètre with chronograph, which moreover also won the public prize. Meanwhile the prize for Ladies’ Watch of the Year went to the Ballon Bleu by Cartier.
To meet eligibility criteria models had to be Swiss made, to have been available on the market since 1st September 2006, to have been produced in a quantity of not less than 200 pieces and sold for not more than 50,000 francs (compared to 35,000 francs for the 2006 edition). One interesting fact to emerge from this is that if the price limit had not been increased to 50,000 francs, none of the four prize-winning models would have been eligible to compete!
According to the rules, the jury may also if it wishes reward an “exceptional watchmaking creation” which does into necessarily meet the selection criteria. It did so this year by awarding its special prize to Robert Greubel and Stéphane Forsey for the inclined Tourbillon 24 seconds.
November 13, 2007
