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The GPHG names 84 watches and clocks for its 2026 shortlist

The 14-category field was drawn from 320 entries by 194 brands and will be shown in Mumbai, Bangkok and Geneva before November's awards.

Hen & Mills Editorial · 4 min read · 8 September 2026

The Grand Prix d'Horlogerie de Genève has named the official nominees for its 2026 awards. Announced on 1 September, the shortlist comprises 84 watches and clocks selected from 320 entries submitted by 194 brands. There are six nominees in each of 14 categories, with 78 wristwatches and six mechanical clocks still in contention.

That is a broad field, but it is no longer an unfiltered catalogue. The GPHG Academy has already completed the first round of voting. What remains is a useful snapshot of the watches and clocks that the organisation believes warrant closer examination before the prizes are decided in November.

Fourteen categories, six nominees apiece

The category list begins with Time Only, where the Bvlgari Octo Finissimo 37 Satin-Polished Titanium sits beside Chopard's L.U.C 1860, the Laurent Ferrier Classic Origin Beige, the Naoya Hida & Co. NH Type 8A, Parmigiani Fleurier's Toric Petite Seconde and Piaget's Polo 79 Sodalite Watch. It is a compact group that still covers very different approaches to a watch whose primary job is simply telling the time.

The Essential category takes a different route. Its six include the Audemars Piguet Neo Frame Jumping Hour, Daniel Roth Extra Plat Rose Gold Skeleton, Grand Seiko Hand-engraved Manual-winding Spring Drive, MB&F SP One Platinum, Parmigiani Fleurier Tonda PF Minute Rattrapante Arctic Rose and Stéphane Pierre L'Impétrant. The official list does not rank these watches within their category, so a nomination should be read as a place in the field rather than a preliminary podium.

Complication brings together Cleguer, Czapek, Dominique Renaud, Lederer, Ulysse Nardin x Urwerk and Vianney Halter. The last two entries make the collaborative streak particularly visible: UR-FREAK carries the Ulysse Nardin and Urwerk names, while the Behrens x Vianney Halter KWH carries both names in the official listing.

At the more elaborate end, the Mechanical Exception category includes Blancpain's Grande Double Sonnerie, Chopard's L.U.C Grand Strike, Christiaan van der Klaauw's CVDK Grand Planetarium Eccentric Silicium, Ferdinand Berthoud's Naissance d'une Montre 3, H. Moser & Cie's Endeavour Minute Repeater Cylindrical Tourbillon Skeleton Cosmic Rain and Konstantin Chaykin's Thinking Mystery. Lengthy names are no guarantee of a prize, naturally, but this is the category in which the mechanisms are meant to do much of the talking.

Familiar houses and independent makers share the ballot

The shortlist moves between large maisons and smaller specialists throughout. Chronograph includes an Audemars Piguet Royal Oak, the H. Moser & Cie Endeavour Flyback Chronograph Dual Time Date, Louis Moinet 1816 Chronograph, Parmigiani Fleurier Tonda PF Chronographe Mystérieux, Rexhep Rexhepi Chronograph Flyback and TAG Heuer Monaco Evergraph.

Calendar and Astronomy has entries from Audemars Piguet, Berneron, Bovet 1822, Christiaan van der Klaauw, Krayon and Parmigiani Fleurier. Sports ranges from Chopard and Grand Seiko to H. Moser & Cie, Hermès, IWC and Laurent Ferrier. These are not simple market segments. They are judging groups, and the mix gives the jury markedly different interpretations of each brief to assess side by side.

The lower-priced parts of the competition are represented by the Petite Aiguille and Challenge categories. Christopher Ward, Frédérique Constant, Massena LAB, MING, Otsuka Lotec and TAG Heuer make up Petite Aiguille. Challenge includes Beaubleu, Beda'a, Favre Leuba, Frédérique Constant, Seiko and the SpaceOne x Baltic Seconde Majeure. Mechanical Clock closes the 14-category list with six objects from Carl Suchy & Söhne, Chopard, L'Epée 1839, La Vallée, Louis Vuitton x De Bethune and Miki Eleta.

How the final vote works

The shortlist is the Academy's work, but it does not decide the winners by itself. The 2026 jury, chaired by Wei Koh, will meet behind closed doors in Geneva a few days before the ceremony and physically evaluate the nominated watches and clocks. The Academy also votes again through a digital ballot. According to the GPHG, that Academy result accounts for one-third of the final outcome.

According to the 1 September announcement, these nominees will continue to compete for one of 19 prizes, including the Aiguille d'Or Grand Prix. The winners will be announced on Saturday, 7 November at the Bâtiment des Forces Motrices in Geneva. The ceremony will also be livestreamed on the GPHG website.

The nominees go on tour first

Before the awards, the 2026 roadshow begins in Mumbai from 28 September to 1 October. The 78 nominated wristwatches then travel to Bangkok for an exhibition at The Forum in Gaysorn Amarin from 15 to 18 October.

Geneva is the only pre-ceremony stop named in the release as displaying all 84 nominated watches and clocks, including the six clocks. They will be shown at the Musée d'Art et d'Histoire from 29 October to 15 November. After the winners are known, the prize-winning models will travel to London for the final stop from 18 to 23 November.

For now, the value of the shortlist is less about predicting a single winner than seeing what survived the first vote. It puts recognised icons, experimental collaborations, independent work and mechanical clocks into one official field. The next meaningful result arrives on 7 November, when nominations turn into prizes.