Why the watch world is going backwards

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To benefit Duchenne muscular dystrophy research, the biennial Only Watch auction taking place in Geneva on November 5 is the highest-profile charity auction in the watch industry. In addition to being the place where headlines appear, such as the highest price of a watch at auction, it is a forum for news and ideas where brands often present unique watches that hint at what is to come.

In this context, one of the most anticipated watches will be the Gérald Genta Mickey Mouse, the first watch to be manufactured since the relaunch of the brand this year. It will announce Genta as the home of fun fine watchmaking – Disney characters were Genta’s favorites. , just like chiming clocks. Additionally, the watch combines a jumping hour with another Genta favorite: the retrograde minute indicator.

The new Genta Mickey comes at the end of a pretty busy year for the retrograde indicator. In fact, if you look closely at another just look Upon entering, from Louis Vuitton, you’ll see a retrograde minute indicator lurking among the scribbles that decorate the dial.

I was thinking about the instrument panel of a motorcycle.

But what is a retrograde minute indicator? you might ask. As the name suggests, at the end of an hour the retrograde hand returns to a starting point to begin its journey again, rather than making a continuous circuit around the dial. The effect is similar to the semicircular arrow gauge on old elevators or the analog gas gauge on a car, although, since some of the most famous retrograde clocks were made in the 18th century by Breguet, it would be more correct to say that elevators and gas gauges imitate the operation of the retrograde pocket watch. Breguet’s historic mastery of the retrograde indicator is reflected today in watches such as its Classique References 7327 and 7137 and the 18th-century-inspired Tradition Ref 7597.

Vacheron Constantin was one of the first to put retrograde in a wristwatch in 1940 with the Don Pancho, which had, says the brand’s heritage and style director Christian Selmoni, “a minute repeater combined with the display of the days of the week in a subdial. , and finally a 31-day retrograde indication at 12 o’clock.” More recently, during the 1990s, Vacheron’s Mercator watch, which paid homage to Flemish geographer and cartographer Gerardus Mercator, was an ingenious play on cartographers’ compasses, using them to indicate retrograde hours and minutes. Now, says Selmoni, “we intend to turn this complex function into a technical signature of the house.” Consequently, in 2023 retrogrades were launched in the Patrimony and Traditionnelle collections and, surprisingly, also in the Overseas sports line, which for the first time features a retrograde moon phase indicator.

Catherine Rénier, executive director of Jaeger-LeCoultre, says its brand did its first retrograde in 1938 and, 85 years later, the retrograde is back in the Reverso Tribute Chronograph, which uses a large seconds hand at the top of the dial above a 30-minute retrograde indicator. Rénier believes this demonstrates the brand’s dual expertise: the Reverso case and the ability to manufacture movements especially for it. “At Jaeger-LeCoultre, the movement takes shape according to the case that houses it. “This year we decided to reintroduce the chronograph complication in Reverso and the complication is limited by the rectangular shape of the caliber, i.e. retrograde.”

“Maximum information in minimum space” is the similar reasoning cited by Bulgari’s head of watchmaking, Antoine Pin, for the use of a retrograde date indicator at the top of the Octo Finissimo Perpetual Calendar dial. It turns out that Bulgari watch designer Fabrizio Buonamassa wasn’t even considering watchmaking when he came up with the idea of ​​implementing a retrograde date. “I was actually thinking about the instrument panel on a motorcycle,” Pin says, and when you look at it, it’s exactly like a speedometer.

If Bulgari sees motorcycle instruments when looking retrograde, sports brand Reservoir, which has also gone retrograde on Only Watch, uses a bi-retrograde to recall the instrumentation in the cockpit of the P-51 Mustang for its Airfight chronograph. And if motorcycles and warplanes aren’t your thing, then you’re probably familiar with the work of Agenhor, a specialist workshop in Geneva dedicated to taking the retrograde indicator to new heights. Agenhor is behind the whimsical adaptation of the retrograde system in watches such as the Fabergé Peacock or the Hermès Temps Suspendu, and was originally the creator of the Pont des Amoureux mechanism by Van Cleef & Arpels, in which the hour and minute hands represent two lovers who meet for a kiss in the middle of a bridge (Van Cleef now manufactures the movements for these watches in-house).

Nicolas Wiederrecht, who now co-runs the workshop founded by his father, explains that he is currently working on even more elaborate interpretations of the retrograde, even using it to indicate a second time zone. He has noted that there is a growing awareness and demand for imaginative use of retrograde indicators that goes beyond traditional applications. As he says: “If it’s just a few simple retrograde seconds, no one cares much.”