Mid-Century Watch Brand Universal Genève Is Coming Back From the Dead
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In December last year, the private equity and investment group that owns Breitling surprised the watch world with news it had acquired Universal Genève, a dormant watchmaker whose mid-century designs once put it at the cutting edge of watches.
It planned to revive it.
“As excited as we are, we are also fully aware of the task at hand and the profound heritage we are set to uphold,” said Georges Kern, CEO of Breitling.
The word on the street was that new Universal Genève models would start to appear in 2025/6, with the portfolio of designs being overseen by Sylvain Berneron, Breitling’s creative director.
Those plans were off-roaded somewhat when Berneron quit Breitling within months to focus on his own brand, releasing watches that are universally acclaimed to be works of art – we spoke to him about them here – and may well win a GPHG award at next month’s ceremony.
Berneron told OT: the Podcast that the task of bringing Universal Genève back to life was a formidable one.
To help Georges Kern realise this, the Breitling boss assembled an advisory board made up of a crack team of Universal Genève collectors, watch industry veterans and journalists, who regularly meet to go through the brand’s archives to help determine which “UG” models should be revived, and how.
The advisory board is presumably supposed to be secret, but various people including vintage dealer Eric Wind, Breitling expert Fred Mandelbaum and Hodinkee founder Ben Clymer have all spoken about getting the call.
Universal Genève was renowned for creating advanced, complicated watches long before many of its peers. Particularly with its Compax series of chronographs, which included models like the Tri-Compax (featuring a chronograph, calendar and a moon phase) and its Aero-Compax (with a second time zone for pilots).
In the 1950s Universal Genève collaborated with a young Gérald Genta, who later became well-known for designing the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak and the Patek Philippe Nautilus.
Genta’s Polerouter, from 1954, came with a distinctive domed, minimalist design and was one of the earliest watches designed for commercial airline pilots. (Breitling also has strong ties to aviation.)
It seems likely that these models are on the list to make a comeback.
To whet everyone’s appetite, on Wednesday a new website, Instagram account and visual identity was unveiled, with pleasing artwork by the sometime Louis Vuitton and Gucci illustrator, Constantin Prozorov.
The website will also house UG Magazine, something that promises “to explore Universal Genève’s history and take the audience behind the scenes of the brand’s revival”.
In the absences of any actual new watches, Prozorov’s artwork is doing the heavy-lifting, its surreal imagery and dreamlike quality having a distinct Hermés-via-Wes Anderson vibe, with a debt to Jean Cocteau, who collaborated with Universal Genève in the 1940s.
“The new Universal Genève website and social media pages offer an exciting glimpse of what’s to come for Universal Genève,” says Gregory Bruttin, the new MD of the brand, formerly of Roger Dubuis.
“This is a beloved brand with an active community. Our advisory board is working with us to build the brand in a modern way while remaining true to the considerable heritage of Universal Genève.”
It’s a smart way to get people talking, and a visually atypically Swiss approach.
Meanwhile, the board is clearly there to sense-check how to recreate UG in a way that pleases the fans first. Get them on board, and the rest will follow.
Apparently, we can expect the first product towards the end of next year – a comeback that will be one of 2025’s biggest horology stories.
Until then, there’s some nice artwork to enjoy.
This story is from About Time, Esquire’s free weekly newsletter devoted to the world of watches. Sign up here
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