Gérald Charles CEO talks Alex de Minaur, Genta’s legacy & 3 must-see watches
Time+TideThere’s a particular kind of pressure that comes with inheriting a name. Not a business, not a building — a name. Federico Ziviani, the young CEO of Gérald Charles, carries his great-uncle’s first two given names as his brand’s entire identity. At Watches and Wonders 2026, standing in front of a wall dedicated to tennis, he seems comfortable with the weight of it.
For those who need the thread pulled, Gérald Charles is the final creative chapter of Gérald Genta himself. After selling his eponymous brand, Genta used his first two names to launch a small, bespoke operation: three watchmakers, 50 watches a year, zero retail presence. Federico and his father stepped in to manage it. Now, some years later, it’s 40 people, 1,500 watches annually, and a roster of high-profile tennis partnerships. The numbers tell a story of controlled ambition.
What’s interesting about Gérald Charles at this fair is where it sits in the broader Genta universe. Brands like Audemars Piguet, IWC, and Omega have all drawn from the Genta well, reissuing or reinterpreting his most iconic designs. Federico makes a reasonable case that Gérald Charles is something different. Not an interpretation of Genta’s work, but a continuation of it. The pieces here were touched by Genta himself, sketched in the mornings of his later years, built in collaboration with Federico’s uncle. That’s a meaningful distinction, even if the watch world won’t always pause long enough to make it.
The headline piece at the show was the Masterlink Perpetual Calendar — an asymmetrically shaped perpetual calendar with a micro rotor, a three-counter display, and an enlarged six o’clock subdial for legibility. The movement is skeletonised in a way that feels genuinely integrated; it doesn’t sit on top of the base plate so much as emerge from it.
On the caseback, a detail that rewards attention: the map of Geneva, rendered in finishing. Streets become the city grid, the Rue du Rhône crosses through, and the Jet d’Eau is represented by the balance wheel. It’s the kind of thing that reads as a gimmick in description and lands as poetry in person.
The second piece is a sandblasted stainless steel edition of the Masterlink with a textured, dark-blasted finish that the brand has developed with some specificity. Federico claims it’s scratch-resistant after treatment; the watch he’s wearing as a comparison, pre-treatment, makes the point. It’s heavier than you expect, more substantial than the brand’s titanium pieces, and sits with a confidence that the fume dials and lightweight sports propositions don’t quite replicate.
Third is the Maestro 3.0 Chronograph Clay — a clay-grained and fumé dial inspired directly by the tennis circuit with the brand’s signature stepped, smiley-shaped case. Baroque elements, a Velcro strap with a low integration point for skin contact, steel construction. It’s one of the sportiest pieces on the table, and supports Gérald Charles’ statement of intent: this brand wants to live on wrists, not in safes.
The tennis strategy, which might have seemed like an odd fit when it launched around 2019, now reads as coherent. A brand with a complicated heritage and zero marketing infrastructure needed a proof of concept: a functioning watch on a professional wrist during actual competition. The current partnership with Alex de Minaur (the lefty crown on one model is specifically cited as approved during match play) extends that logic further. Small brands rarely secure ambassadors of that calibre without compromise; Gérald Charles appears to have managed it on the basis of genuine alignment.
Federico is 30. He talks about 30, 40, and 50-year time horizons. A new case shape, he says, may come — but not for a long time. The focus now is the Maestro silhouette, consistency, and the simpler challenge of getting people to actually put the watch on. He’s probably right that it reads differently on the wrist than in photographs. Most interesting things do.