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Through a designer’s eyes – Emmanuel Gueit critiques 2024 watch releases

Through a designer’s eyes – Emmanuel Gueit critiques 2024 watch releases

Andrew McUtchen

EDITOR’S NOTE: This article first appeared in Issue 9 of the Time+Tide NOW Magazine. You can find Issue 9 in both physical and digital formats in the T+T Shop, and you’ll be treated with more industry insights, exciting interviews, and of course, the full Watch Buying Guide.

There are some moments in this watch life that are truly surreal. One, that happens more often than I ever would have dreamed goes something like this. My phone pings. I see a notification, I hit it, and it’s from one of the greatest living watch designers, Emmanuel Gueit. That’s trippy enough on its own. I mean, I’ve written countless stories about the man. And I’ve spoken about him ever since I first learned he designed the Audemars Piguet Offshore when he was just 20. What a crazy claim to fame. Especially considering the folklore surrounding its launch – peaking with Gérald Genta himself storming into the Audemars Piguet booth at Basel to track Gueit and his seniors down and “let them know his thoughts”. One picture of Gueit is particularly iconic to me. He’s looking square at the camera through black-rimmed glasses, and – oddly – he’s biting his thumb. The pose shouldn’t work, but somehow it’s peak masculinity, peak style, peak authenticity.

audemars piguet royal oak offshore

What appears to be a late afternoon sun lights up the folds of his denim shirt and it touches the underside of the bracelet of his Royal Oak Offshore on his wrist. The watch he designed, and then convinced the former President of Audemars Piguet, Stephen Urquhart, to release in 1997. I use it in every article I can. I practically have it in my favourites folder. Alongside current-day Lenny Kravitz at the gym, and Harrison Ford riding a bike looking jacked, it’s a talismanic image to me of authenticity.

This is the very picture that greets me in the title bar when I get that constant pinging on WhatsApp. Somehow, we’ve become friends. A new watch will be all over Instagram, and ping, there’ll be a 30-word summary waiting for me in my feed. On even better days, a sketch of a watch he’s working on will appear. It’s hard to articulate how this happened, or why. Having spoken to Gueit on many occasions about the nature of watch design, I’ve come to see him as more than just an image, and an icon – and to be able to contextualise his work, and his design ethos in lesser known collections that he’s done for Tiffany & Co., Ikepod, and Rolex. The common denominator – and the driving force in his designs – is a quote he attributes to his father: “Your design should be recognisable from ten bar stools away.”

To illustrate this point, we tried it in a London restaurant one day. True to the task, I could identify his as yet unreleased new model as a Tiffany & Co. watch, easy. It’s a square model, with a mirror-polished sloping bezel, and – cha-ching – a Tiffany blue dial. It immediately reminded me of the eponymous “Square” Tiffany & Co. watch from 2017, but with a very weird and asymmetrical logo placement. So, a tick for Emmanuel. Could he ID mine? Not a chance. A Baltic x Peter Auto Tricompax! The game led to an idea. Would Emmanuel be up for listing five designs that he loves, and five that were a missed opportunity for this feature story? He smiled that devilish smile, and for the purposes of the story, let’s just say he bit his thumb, and we began.

The hits

Audemars Piguet Mini Royal Oak

audemars piguet mini royal oak wrist

“OK, the first one is the return of a watch I designed in ‘97, the Royal Oak ‘Mini-Oak’. I had so much fun designing it. You know, it was a quartz movement and they had the pusher to change the time. And I included the pusher into the fake crown. So it was very fun to work on this. And then I made some examples with diamonds, with a heart shape, with a teddy bear. It was a lot of fun. So I was very happy to see them back. What’s different about these is the finishing. They use this finishing, special finishing, I don’t know how they call it? [Frosted Gold]. The thing that changed that I don’t really like very much, is the thickness. I think it’s very thick. I also really love the sand gold models. I thought that gold was beautiful, and it’s not too bright and it’s not too yellow, and it’s very pale and soft and pleasant to look at.”

TAG Heuer Formula 1 x Kith

tag kith heuer box
The TAG Heuer x Kith F1 collection.

“Another hit is the TAG Heuer Formula 1. I am super happy and excited to see them back. I remember I had this discussion about this piece with someone from LVMH and I said: ‘You always have to remember who you are and where you come from.’ And TAG comes from a plastic watch. The first success for the brand was with a plastic and aluminium watch. When it came out,they made 600,000 watches a year. It was really incredible. This new version is a little bit pricey to my taste – US$1,600 is expensive for a plastic watch, but I was very happy to see this. It reminded me that in 2016, I did some research on Formula 1 and I designed a few different models, but at the time they said ‘no’. I was ahead of my time, again!”

Hermès Cut

hermes cut 36mm steel bracelet wrist

“I like it a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot! It’s a non-genre watch. It’s for women, but a man can wear it without any problems. It’s not perfect, there’s not really enough Hermès to my taste. I think it’s missing some little Parisian taste. I had a friend who bought the watch actually during Watches and Wonders. I think the metal bracelet looks a little bit too cheap. It’s bling, bling, bling, a little bit too much, but it’s still a beautiful watch. The case is fantastic. I like the little orange dot on the crown – I did a turquoise dot on the crown on the Tiffany. It’s little details like that which makes a watch special.”

Berneron Mirage

berneron mirage prussian blue

“The next one is the Sylvain Berneron. The watch he designed went crazy, and it’s not surprising, because the watch is beautiful. He did what Cartier should have done, actually. I’m glad it’s an outsider who did this watch. Everything is a mirage. Everything is, like, it’s crashed. Even the movement. So all the details are different, and that makes it so beautiful. You are just attracted to this watch. You can feel some sensuality. You want to touch it and, you know, to caress it. It’s fantastic. I’m a big fan of this watch.”

Toledano & Chan B/1

toledano chan b1 front

“My last one is the Toledano & Chan, because it’s different, and you can wear it two ways, actually. You can wear the crown on your arm or the crown on the other side because there is no logo on the dial. So you can turn your watch, you can wear it how you want. As a design, it’s harsh. It’s very tough. But it works very well. I reached out to [Phil] Toledano and I said: ‘I can see the watch on gold bracelet, leather strap or crocodile.’ And he’s like: ‘My God, that’s good!’ It has huge potential. And not only to have different metals, but what he has within stainless steel or even gold, he can play with incredibly.”

The misses

Audemars Piguet [Re]Master 02

Audemars Piguet [RE]Master 02

“They have such an incredible historic watch here, and I don’t know, they made everything wrong. The thickness, the size, the dial, the lugs, the logo is very big, and the crown? What did they do there, a Royal Oak crown? When this first watch appeared, the Royal Oak was not even designed! This was first launched in 1960-something and the Royal Oak in 1972. So I don’t understand. And they should have made it mechanical and hand-wound to make it slimmer. It’s a mistake to make it automatic. And if they must make it automatic, do it with a micro-rotor to keep it slim. It’s a big disappointment. The idea is fantastic and the original watch is fantastic, but this could have been so much better.”

Piaget Polo 79

polo 79

“The number two is the new Piaget Polo 79. It’s the same problem as the AP [Re]Master02. They have such a beautiful original watch to work with. Maybe I’m not a good person to ask, because my dad designed the original Polo. But it’s missing the elegance. It’s missing my dad’s elegance. You can put the original Polo flat on the table. But because of the first link of the bracelet, like on the Royal Oak, the new one doesn’t sit flat. The other big difference is, of course, the thickness, because they did an automatic movement. They also included a crown and they should have hidden the crown on the back of the case, too.”

Arnold & Son Longitude

arnold son longitude

“Why? Why do this kind of stainless-steel integrated watch like everybody else? I don’t understand. It’s not even beautiful. Why do niche brands like this, who are amazing, and who have such an important place and history, try to look like everyone else? So many brands make the same mistake. Sartory Billard, Czapek, Moser, they all make the same mistake. Use your imagination and stop wasting your time. You will never be a Royal Oak, you will never be a Nautilus.”

TAG Heuer Monaco Skeleton

TAG Heuer Monaco Chronograph Skeleton Navy Blue 1

“I don’t like the TAG Heuer Monaco Skeleton. I don’t think you should touch an iconic watch and make it complicated and with a lot of things on the dial, especially when it’s a design from a computer and cut by a machine. So for me, it’s watchmakers that open the dial, take out the metal, and then do the angles and the finishing. That’s good openwork…”

Bulgari Octo Finissimo Ultra COSC

bulgari octo finissimo ultra cosc wrist

“I think that it’s incredible, you know. What they’ve achieved with the thinness. But when the lugs become thicker than the case, there is a problem. If you have to make your bracelet bigger than the case, there is a problem. I mean, there’s a lot of ingenuity in the watch in terms of the way the clasp is skeletonized, which means it closes into itself. There are some really clever touches, but it certainly takes the form versus function to another stratosphere because this is just about making a statement.”