Gérald Genta’s name is inseparable from some of the most important watches of the last century, but designing for others was never his end point. In 1969, he founded a brand under his own name, intent on realising his own vision of what fine watchmaking ought to be. For Genta, elaborate designs naturally extended to elaborate mechanics, and with the help of some of the best movement constructors of the era, he produced watches of almost defiant complexity. It was through his chiming watches that several milestones were set, including the world’s first automatic grande et petite sonnerie with Westminster chime and the record-thin 2.72mm minute repeater, which remains the slimmest ever made to this day.

LVMH’s revival of Gérald Genta began with a thoughtful recreation of the ’90s Oursin. For its second act, the brand returns not just to the look of Genta’s work but to its mechanical audacity — with a minute repeater. The Gentissima Oursin and the new Minute Repeater are the first serially produced watches since the revival was announced in 2023, though the Mickey Mouse Minute Repeater created for Only Watch that year was an early sign of things to come.

The Gérald Genta Minute Repeater in yellow gold, an elegant balance of simplicity and complexity

Artistic Director, Matthieu Hegi

Chiming watches were as central to Genta’s work as they are to La Fabrique du Temps’ Michel Navas and Enrico Barbasini, who were part of Genta’s all-star team of constructors during its heyday. In fact, they were both involved in the creation of the automatic grande et petite sonnerie launched in 1994 for the brand’s 25^th anniversary. Hence, a minute repeater was never really in doubt.

The watch is, at first glance, a rather unassuming piece of watchmaking. It has a rounded octagonal case, a familiar echo of Genta’s long fascination with the form, measuring 40mm across and a mere 9.6mm in height. It has single central lugs and a beautiful gadroon bezel, which recalls the tiered geometry of his pyramid-shaped cases.

The sculptural case design of the gérald genta Minute Repeater, viewed in profile

Due to the limited space in the case, the case walls were pared back to a minimum, as thin as 0.6mm at certain points to maximize the amount of air inside the case relative to the outer dimensions, with the sapphire crystal likewise reduced from a standard thickness of around 1mm to 0.8mm. This not only increased the effective internal volume, allowing the case to function as a resonant cavity, but also made the metal surfaces more responsive to vibration. In effect, both the air within the case and the case walls themselves contribute to amplifying the sound, producing a chime that is clearer and more projected than the dimensions might suggest. Yellow gold was chosen for the case, which generally produces a brighter, more delicate tone, in contrast to rose gold, often regarded as the ideal for its richer, more rounded sound. Yet with the case walls pared so thin, the resonance is likely to be quite unlike what you’d normally expect.

The dial is a disc of deep black onyx with its surface catching the light in a way that lacquer cannot, at once dense and luminous. What might have seemed austere is tempered by the railroad minute track, with line indexes set against an inner circle while the outer ring follows the shape of the case. The choice of onyx recalls Genta’s fondness for hardstone dials, and it sets up a quiet tension with the complex mechanism beneath.

The dial’s minute track features a circular inner profile for the indexes, with an outer segment echoing the watch’s case shape

The Gérald Genta Minute Repeater in yellow gold, with its crown topped by a polished onyx cabochon

The movement is the manual winding Calibre GG-002, which is a variation of the movement found in the Mickey Mouse Minute Repeater made for Only Watch 2023. It has a classical construction with its gongs and hammers, along with the strike train and centrifugal governor located on the top plate of the movement while the striking mechanism, comprising of snails and racks, is located on the dial side. Power reserve is 80 hours on a single barrel and the movement runs at 21,600vph.

The two gongs of different pitches are manually tuned by ear and hand. They are screwed to the main plate by a metal foot

The layout and bridge design are very beautiful. The boundary of the bridges is traced around the centre wheel, with the barrel bridge on one side and the bridge for the repeater barrel on the other, so that the centre wheel sits as the natural focal point of the movement architecture. The transitions between the bridges are also attractively resolved, and there are several well executed sharp interior angles. There is also a beautifully formed crossbar click, which can be found in a handful of traditional watches on the market, including Laurent Ferrier’s Tourbillon and Minute Repeater, both of which, if you recall, were developed with the help of Michel and Enrico.

At four o’clock sits the centrifugal governor, which has an octagonal housing. It is mounted on the final pinion of the repeater train and regulates the speed of the chimes. Each of its pivoted arms carries a weight held close to the centre by a spring; as the train accelerates, centrifugal force pushes the weights outward until they approach the inner wall of the housing. The resulting friction and spring tension stabilise the rotation, ensuring a steady cadence of strikes. Unusually, the governor here is capped by a sapphire cover, not for display, but to prevent dust generated by friction in the governor from entering the movement.

A closer look at the strike train with a governor that has a sapphire cover

It takes more than a month to assemble a single movement, and production is capped at 10 pieces a year. In an era when rarity is so often contrived, limited for the sake of being limited, the minute repeater remains bound by genuine constraints. The time and labour required for assembly, the hand adjustment of each gong by ear, and the painstaking regulation of the striking works makes its scarcity inherent to the craft itself.

Tech Specs: Gérald Genta Minute Repeater

Movement: Manual-winding Calibre GG-002; 80-hour power reserve; 3Hz or 21,600 vph
Functions: Hours and minutes; minute repeater
Case: 40mm x 9.6mm; 18K yellow gold
Dial: Onyx with 18K gold hands and applied indices
Strap: Black leather strap
Availability: 10 pieces per year
Price: Upon request