The Genta name is invoked whenever an integrated bracelet meets a ’70s style case, but the man himself was more than the Royal Oak, Nautilus and Ingenieur. And while Bulgari may have revived his eponymous brand, his legacy lives on in Gerald Charles. It was after all, the eponymous studio he worked at as chief designer up until his death in 2011.
But the Gerald Charles of today isn’t the one Genta left behind. Prior to 2019, the company was producing 100 or so bespoke pieces a year, with a focus on high complications. This was in many ways what Genta wanted. He had always been a fan of complicated watches as his sketches, still owned by Gerald Charles, showed. So, with 2026’s new Masterlink Perpetual Calendar, Gerald Charles is returning to complicated form. But why was the shift to less complicated watchmaking necessary in the first place?
As current CEO Federico Ziviani puts it, “We had perpetual and annual calendars, minute repeaters, monopushers, a different complication every month with Gerald.” But producing bespoke watches for a handful of collectors does not constitute a brand. So, when Federico took over in 2019, he came with change.
The biggest change was to take things back to fundamentals, a focus on their signature Maestro case with its six o’clock ‘smile’. That meant time-only models in the main followed by chronographs. No minute repeaters, no rattrapantes and no perpetual calendars. It wasn’t exactly a back-to-basics approach, but instead distilled Gerald Charles’ unique aesthetic into something with fewer distractions, more immediately understandable.
With that approach, Gerald Charles went from building 100 watches a year to 1,500. That’s a big shift and an equally big risk. Look at what happened when Greubel Forsey decided to up their production numbers and cut their prices. This worried collectors that had invested in the brand specifically for their unsurpassed watchmaking, and then-CEO Antonio Calce was ousted after just four years. Under Michel Nydegger, the brand pivoted back to small numbers of incredibly expensive watches.
Fortunately for Gerald Charles, it worked out not just in the numbers of watches but by garnering a genuine following: “Now more than 30% of our collectors, they own more than three of our watches,” says Ziviani. The difference is that while Greubel Forsey places itself at the height of watchmaking with prices to match, Gerald Charles is more of a storyteller, and the more collectors that are able to invest in that story, the better.
The downside of this shift was that it meant leaving high complications behind. The expertise was still there of course, but the expertise that was once laser focused on complications was channelled into making simpler pieces the best they could be. That is, until now, with the launch of the Masterlink Perpetual Calendar.
“Many collectors see the brand today,” says Ziviani, “see the collection, and they could not imagine that a perpetual calendar may be coming. We’ve almost never done it before.
“But the perpetual calendar was one of the favourite complications of our founder, Gerald Charles Genta. In our archives we have many perpetual calendars, and this is where we took the inspiration from. It was a complication that spoke to him and was very close to his heart.”
The watch industry as a whole seems to feel the same. The number of perpetual calendars available to the discerning collector has exploded. Last year saw QPs ranging from Frederique Constant’s entry-level options to a clutch of intense, 270th anniversary Vacheron Constantin Traditionelle models. If you have the money, there’s no shortage of options, something Ziviani is well aware of – that and how potentially easy that makes building a Gerald Charles version.
“There are so many perpetual calendars everywhere, so we can just put an existing modular calendar on one of our movements and focus on the design. But that’s not what we wanted.”
Instead, the new 306-piece movement is a lot more than a shaped plate with a round movement bolted onto it. The core of this layout is a large moon phase and date indicator at six o’clock, which uses a slice of extra space only possible thanks to Gerald Charles’ curved smile. It turns an aesthetic signature into something genuinely useful. As Ziviani puts it, “we didn’t just engineer the movement for the pleasure of doing it; we did it for a purpose.”
It’s also worth noting that rather than the usual 59 teeth, necessitating daily jumps, the moon phase here instead has double that, jumping twice a day instead. That technically means that the indicator is slightly more in-line with the real-world location of the moon, but in reality just means smoother, less noticeable jumps. It’s a small touch, but emphasises the purposeful, nuanced overhaul of Gerald Charles’ movement compared to the ‘average’ perpetual calendar.
That moon phase is then flanked by the other perpetual calendar indicators – days of the week at nine o’clock, months at three – with an oversized 12 o’clock numeral balancing things out at the top. The end result is a clean, legible calendar with a grooved dial more sporty than haute horology in feel. The same can’t be said of the movement’s finish.
“We left nothing unfinished. Every component inside and out is brushed, pearled, striped, whatever. But the apotheosis of this finishing is a poetic element to the movement, the inspiration of the city of Geneva.”
If you take a close look at the movement, you’ll see a small black stone just under the Gerald Charles name on the left-hand side. If you then align this with a map of Geneva, matching the stone to Gerald Charles’ atelier on Rue du Mont-Blanc, the two will sync up. In an abstract way, the straight lines of the Geneva stripes match the parts of the map that are land; the unique curved stripes match the water and the balance lines up with the iconic Jet d’Eau.
Few would notice the touch unprompted, but it nonetheless goes to show the attention to detail that Gerald Charles have funnelled into the new movement. From the added teeth in the moon phase to its integration into the ‘smile’ to the Geneva-inspired finishing, they’ve made it their own.
The case choice is equally deliberate. Rather than the more ornate Maestro, Gerald Charles have instead opted for their sleeker, sportier Masterlink with its shapely integrated bracelet. Ultra-light Grade 5 titanium with 100m water resistance, it makes for a more practical watch than you’d expect from most perpetual calendars, most of which barely manage 50m. Rather than just leveraging the brand’s most recent collection however, the use of the Masterlink is a very deliberate choice.
“The Maestro for us is more baroque and more experimental,” says Ziviani. “The Masterlink is the more streamlined, linear, poetic and technical case. The two collections will evolve in parallel, but different collections suit different complications. The perpetual calendar fits in with the Masterlink because it’s elegant. The Jump Hour on the other hand is very extravagant, perfect for the Maestro.”
That might sound like Ziviani already had a place in mind for every complication in watchmaking. But it turns out, it’s less about the complication itself than it is how it’s approached. Take the minute repeater as an example:
“If you make a jumping hour minute repeater with shaped gongs, all very beautiful and maximalist, that means Maestro. If you make it more technical and lean, minimal with a very simple dial and two very small gongs, then it’s Masterlink.”
This is the kind of thinking which more than suggests that the new Masterlink Perpetual Calendar is not the last new complication Ziviani has in the pipeline. While details are scarce at this point, you only need to look at the pre-2019 era of Gerald Charles to get a feeling for what might be next. But with higher complications comes a higher price point – to the exclusion of the entry-level.
“Eventually our production will be more focused on the higher complications,” says Ziviani of the shift, “and the time available or the entry level may be less. We will keep working on the entry-level with stones, meteorite, but for sure complications will be the focus.”
To put that into context, according to Ziviani the current average price point for a Gerald Charles watch is CHF 27,000 (around £25,850). The new Perpetual Calendar on the other hand will set you back £75,100 in grey or £83,500 with an open dial – and it’s unlikely that it will be the most expensive in the new era of high complications. Minute repeaters, for example, command much higher prices. Even though it will be a relatively gradual shift, that’s going to make it much more of a stretch for those 30% of Gerald Charles owners with three watches or more.
Ziviani however doesn’t see this as a problem. In fact, while there are still more perpetual calendars than ever before, there’s still nothing like Gerald Charles watches.
“We have comparables and we have clients that buy other watch brands, but are we in competition? Very rarely. Our main challenge today is not convincing collectors to buy our watches, but is telling the story, the true story.”
The Masterlink Perpetual Calendar is the next chapter in that story.
“Eventually our production will be more focused on the higher complications and the time available or the entry level may be less”.
More details at Gerald Charles.
