Aurel Bacs commands the gavel during important watch auctions and events. He’ll oversee the upcoming ONLY Watch auction for Phillips auction house (Bacs is co-founder and partner with Phillips, in association with Bacs & Russo) and just last week ended an extensive world tour as president of the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie GPHG.
iW had a moment to catch up with Bacs in Geneva for behind-the-scenes insight just moments before announcing the winners of the GPHG last week.
What improvements or changes did you make in this year’s GPHG?
Overall, the GPHG is a world wide recognized event in our industry. Certainly there are other prizes, but the GPHG is the Prize. It is like the Oscars standing above all the other prizes a movie could win. Having said that, I am the first one to admit it is never perfect. Therefore, we are trying to increase the quality, the professionalism, the rules and the knowledge of the jury year after year. Sometimes there are touches that are so small that even some members of the jury have not even noticed we have changed something.
First, I think it is important that throughout the year I am wearing my GPHG badge. That means when I am meet watchmakers I am an ambassador, reassuring them of how professional everything is and that we do not have any secret behind-the-scenes discussions and that it is a totally democratic vote where twenty-some members express their will free of any influence or conflicts of interest.
Second, I upheld to occasionally adapt the rules. Sometimes a word can change the meaning of the category, what watch qualifies for the category or what is the focus of the category. Simply because some members of the foundation are not professionals in the watch industry, I’m occasionally asked to share my own humble opinion.
The jury has to constantly be in rotation. It is one of the key beliefs and ethics of the GPHG that it’s not a static jury that stays for ten or twenty years, but every couple of years there’s somebody new… one out and one in. I am helping to spot within the worldwide industry. Here with my professional background I can recommend specialists around the world.
Why has the selection of watches been expanded?
We have more prizes then in previous years and that is simply a result of the fact that we felt that in certain categories apples and oranges were mixed. You cannot have a $5,000 watch in steel running in the same category against a two-million-dollar grand complication that many years ago was considered a Men’s watch. Today the Men’s category is coming back to the rules. There’s a clear definition of what complications are not allowed to be in the Men’s categories, which is why you don’t have minute repeaters, tourbillons, perpetual calendars and chronographs in the Men’s watch category. However, that meant once you kick out something from a category you have to put is elsewhere, so now we have expanded the amount of categories so we have an apple category and an orange category. We needed to narrow down the scope of the categories so the candidates are as close as possible and it is a fair competition.
How do you choose the final six watches in each of the twelve categories?
The deadline is before the summer in which any brand can submit their watches. Then the commissioner is going to approve that the watch is apt and suitable for the category. Once this is done, the list of 300 or 400 watches is posted online so the public can see who is competing. We the jury receive the ballots and we eliminate those that we think are not worthy of the final.
What does that mean? You need to spend several working days reading about 400 watches. Earlier you had in Baselworld and SIHH the opportunity to handle the watches. We need to say which watches are not in our view worthy of being a finalist.
What category generated the most heated debate this year?
I cannot remember having such a struggle picking my favorites in each category. That means that the finalists are very, very close together. This means several things. The pre-selection process was well done by the jurors and it means that the manufacturers have submitted extraordinary watches worthy of winning. I can only say that in certain categories–I remember the repeater category– we refused to go to lunch because we had a minute repeater on each ear, comparing the purity of the sound of the gongs. We had Eric Singer, the drummer of Kiss who is said to have the absolute ear, debating which is the pure sound. I am sure in the end there was not a unanimous opinion.
What do you believe the impact of winning the GPHG has on the brand or the watch?
I think there are multiple impacts based on the price. First, there is a big distinction whether it is a large group or a small independent maker. Some independent makers with ten, twenty, thirty employees, it is eventually a breakthrough in terms of recognitions and credibility. They essentially peel off their start-up costume and become a fully accepted member of the horological landscape today. For larger groups, it is more a matter of approval that the direction they are taking is supported by the either the public or the professionals on the jury.
There is so much happening right now with new technologies and new materials. I can just imagine how many engineers or heads of production are going to the CEO saying ‘I need five million to develop a new movement,’ and he says, ‘why would you want to do that? You are out of your mind because that is not going to work with our P&L.’ When, one to two years later, he is being called on stage accepting a prize for his hard work it has multi-faceted impact around the globe. It is not just for the brand, sometimes it is the career of one person that may change with such a prize.
You live and breath watches… how do you stay so passionate?
Good question, I sometimes wonder myself. On one hand it is the surge for perfection, the perfect watch, which at the same time you probably know does not exist.
So on one hand you could abandon the whole quest, but let me do it one more season, and tomorrow morning I might find the Holy Grail. It is like why Indiana Jones goes into caves with snakes and spiders. He wants to find that one big thing. It is not only the watches that I love – it is also watch collectors. I have had the chance to meet some of the most intellectual, cordial, genuine, funny, education, elegant, quirky, powerful men and women through this profession and I believe that if I would worked in a firm behind a desk in Geneva I wouldn’t meet them.
How do you describe your perfect watch?
A watch has to be wearable, has to be practical and legible. Sometimes you see watches with more pushers and hands that, if you are not studying engineering, you don’t even know which way to look at it.
The size has to be right because by growing a watch anything is technically possible, but to fit it on my rather thin wrist it is quite a challenge. The ratio between dial, case, shape, thickness, width and diameter has to be right. The quality has to be right. I cannot ever imagine wearing a watch that was made by a robot or a computer without the attention to detail that only a skilled watchmaker can give it.
Then, to make it even more complicated, I would like this super watch not to be ostentatious, but actually very, very discrete. That alone is a contradiction and this is why in some instances certain complications are not even available in steel because the watchmaker that makes this multi-hundred-thousand-dollar complicated movement would want to case it gold or platinum, not steel. Then I would like this watch to be a unique piece. If even the most perfect thing becomes accessible to anyone, it is no longer that treasure or the Holy Grail.
I think that never in my life will I find that watch that does everything that I can afford, that I will be able to wear. As long as it does not exist, I will look for it.
If you could find one watch to put on the block at auction, what watch would that be?
There are certain watches by eminent watchmakers, certainly Patek Philippe, Rolex, Vacheron Constantin and Audemars Piguet, where there is a consensus. It is my hope that forty, fifty, sixty years ago watchmaker or an owner of a company had exactly that same instinctive thought or reaction that said, ‘Lets do that a little bigger or in steel.’
Of those that we know exist, I think the Patek Philippe stainless steel reference 1518 is, to me, a holy grail. Moreover, within the Rolex family, I believe some of the moonphases that are said to have never been made in white gold or platinum, would be a holy grail. Then there are also models in Vacheron Constantin or Audemars Piguet that are either too small or too large. It’s what doesn’t exist that is desired.
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