【INDUSTRY IN-DEPTH REVIEW】The GPHG's Commercial Tension: Entry Fees, Flexible Categories, and the Challenge of Defining Excellence

When brands pay to participate, choose their own categories, and retain the right to decline nominations, what exactly is the GPHG measuring?

1. The question begins with participation

Any discussion of the 2026 Grand Prix d'Horlogerie de Genève (GPHG) should begin with its participation model.

Brands pay CHF 800 per candidate watch to enter the competition. If a watch is selected among the nominees, an additional CHF 7,000 participation fee applies, or CHF 4,000 for Mechanical Clock entries. The rules also state that the Academy may propose watches for consideration, but brands ultimately decide whether to confirm those entries and participate in the competition.

None of this demonstrates that judging outcomes are influenced by fees. However, it does define the field from which the competition is drawn.

The GPHG does not evaluate every watch launched during a given year. Instead, it evaluates watches that have either been entered by their manufacturers or whose manufacturers have agreed to participate in the competition. Many well-known awards operate in a similar way. Yet the structure inevitably raises a question: is the competition identifying the year's best watch overall, or the best watch among those participating in the system?

Reasonable observers can disagree on whether that distinction is important. What cannot be disputed is that the two questions are not identical.

1. Categories that leave room for interpretation

One of the largest structural changes introduced for 2026 is the replacement of the traditional Men's and Ladies' categories with three new classifications: Essential, Complication, and Gemset.

The stated goal is understandable. Modern watch collecting has moved beyond many traditional gender distinctions, and a product-based framework arguably reflects contemporary buying behaviour more accurately.

The challenge lies in where the boundaries are drawn.

According to the rules, the Essential category may include watches displaying hours, minutes, seconds, date, power reserve, moon phase, and day/night indications. It may also include digital and retrograde displays.

Meanwhile, the Complication category is defined as covering watches distinguished by creativity, mechanical complexity, and additional functions.

Collectors may reasonably debate where certain watches belong.

A retrograde display, for example, can be viewed as a straightforward display method by one observer and as a noteworthy complication by another. The rules provide guidance, but they do not eliminate subjective interpretation.

Additional complexity emerges elsewhere.

The Tourbillon, Chronograph, and Calendar categories explicitly allow supplementary complications and indications. A watch may therefore enter one of these categories while incorporating multiple additional features beyond the category's core complication.

That does not invalidate the categories. However, it does mean that watches competing alongside one another may differ substantially in scope, ambition, and mechanical complexity.

The Gemset category introduces another interesting distinction. Eligibility is determined partly through a gemstone threshold of up to six carats, while pieces exceeding that level fall under Jewellery.

Whether gemstone weight alone is the ideal dividing line is open to debate.

In practice, category selection becomes a strategic decision. Brands are allowed to select the category in which their watches compete, subject to compliance review.

As a result, success in the competition may depend not only on the watch itself, but also on where it is positioned within the framework.

A question sits underneath all of this, and it is the one critics return to most often. A prize is meant to answer something simple: which was the best watch in this category? GPHG increasingly answers a narrower question instead, and every subdivision creates another way of being best.

A jewelled watch belongs to no single argument. Depending on caratage and technique it may be entered in Jewellery or in Gemset, and a reader who wants to know what the finest jewelled watch of the year actually was will find several plausible answers and no single verdict.

This is where some argue the prize fails most visibly. With 14 categories, each producing a winner, plus the Aiguille d'Or, GPHG produces a taxonomy at least as much as a champion, and a taxonomy is harder to remember than a champion.

The defence is fair. Without separate categories, a modest steel watch would be judged against a unique piece in platinum, and the prize would simply reward expense. Division exists so that comparison means something.

Both things are true at once, which is why the debate never closes: the framework is fairer than a single prize, and considerably less decisive than one.

1. A highly influential jury

The 2026 jury consists of 24 members and carries two-thirds of the final voting weight. The Academy contributes the remaining one-third.

This is neither unusual nor inherently problematic. Major awards often rely on specialist judges.

Even so, concentration of decision-making authority inevitably places greater emphasis on governance, transparency, and public confidence.

For supporters, a smaller jury allows deeper discussion and more focused evaluation.

For critics, a smaller jury increases the importance of ensuring that selection procedures remain robust and clearly understood.

Either way, the influence of the jury is substantial.

The GPHG's winners help shape industry narratives, attract attention to brands, and contribute to perceptions of prestige. The structure therefore deserves scrutiny not because it is unique, but because its decisions carry consequences.

1. What the shortlist may reveal

After examining this year's nominees, I found myself thinking less about individual watches and more about the system that produced the list.

That reaction may be unfair. It may also be revealing.

The shortlist is the product of multiple layers of decision-making: participation, nomination, category selection, Academy voting, and jury evaluation. None of these elements necessarily weakens the competition. Yet each influences the outcome in ways that are worth understanding.

The GPHG remains the most prominent prize in Swiss watchmaking.

Precisely because of that status, questions about process deserve the same attention as questions about results.

The watches matter.

But so does the framework used to decide which watches matter most.

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