WORLDTEMPUS - 18 August 2011
Elizabeth Doerr
Recalling a stroll past Gérald Genta's booth at the Basel Fair in the early 1990s, it is not hard to remember how reverently and simultaneously irreverently passersby spoke of this masterful designer. With such watch industry staples as Audemars Piguet's Royal Oak, Patek Philippe's Nautilus, the Vacheron Constantin Overseas and the Omega Constellation to his credit, at the beginning of the mechanical renaissance Genta chose to shock the industry with both the most complicated timepiece of the time – created with the assistance of Pierre Michel Golay, now the masterful watchmaker behind Franck Muller's recent opuses – and a reinterpretation of Mickey Mouse, whose retrograde arm pointed out the time against the backdrop of a mother-of-pearl dial inside a precious metal case. Literally unheard of at the time.
PHOTO GALLERY
These latter timepieces were released under Genta's eponymous brand name, which he founded in 1969. Genta, who was born in 1931 in Geneva, sold his brand to Singapore's Hour Glass in 1998, who in turn sold it to Bulgari two years later. Bulgari continued the brand as Genta had started it – with complicated movements, retrograde specialties, and daring designs – until last year, when it was finally integrated into Bulgari's own brand. Genta, who had lived in Monaco for many years, founded a second brand called Gerald Charles in 2001.
