Rexhep Rexhepi's RRCHF Chronograph Flyback wins the 2026 GPHG Aiguille d'Or

Rexhep Rexhepi has won the Aiguille d'Or at the 2026 Grand Prix d'Horlogerie de Genève, watchmaking's highest honor, for the RRCHF Chronograph Flyback. The award, essentially watch of the year, was announced as the ceremony wrapped up in Geneva on Saturday night.

The victory was the main prize among dozens handed out across categories, and it went to a chronograph Rexhepi developed entirely from the ground up. On stage he said the watch represents his passion for watchmaking, and that he simply wanted a thin chronograph he could wear himself.

The young independent watchmaker conceded he had expected a win that evening, but the top award landed as a surprise. It is a striking creation that joins traditional Geneva construction with a very distinctive personality: a compact case, an offset time display and off-centered sapphire sub-dials.

The platinum edition carries a blue-green Grand Feu enamel dial that draws the eye to the complication. Underneath is a movement built around a horizontal clutch and a column wheel, with a large screw balance and a symmetrical layout that places the chronograph minute wheel on the left.

Finishing is exceptional, with deep Geneva stripes and sharp internal angles on the bevelling. Rexhepi is at the top of the independent watchmaking game, and the jury's choice reads as an encore of 2022, when the supremely complex Legacy Machine Sequential EVO claimed the same prize.

Last year's winner was the Breguet Classique Souscription 2025, a deliberately simple watch that felt like a celebration of the brand's 250th anniversary. Before that, the IWC Portugieser Eternal Calendar took 2024, and Audemars Piguet's Code 11.59 Ultra-Complication Universelle won in 2023.

This year's ceremony marked the first outing under new jury president Wei Koh, and it ran mostly in English for the first time to reach a more international audience. It was hosted by Stéphane Bern and Arianne Alcorta, and it ran smoothly, without the technical hitches that plagued earlier editions.

It was a big night for Chopard, which took four prizes. The L.U.C. 1860 won the time-only category, with Karl-Friedrich Scheufele noting the award fell on the 30th anniversary of the maison's manufacture in Fleurier. The watch beat Bulgari's new Octo Finissimo and Naoya Hida's NH Type 8A.

Ferdinand Berthoud contributed two of Chopard's wins. The FB 2TV, with its flying one-minute tourbillon and chain-and-fusée transmission, took the tourbillon category, and another Berthoud piece came from the Naissance d'une Montre project organized by the Time Æon Foundation.

The jewellery category went to Chopard's Mystery Nut, with Caroline Scheufele saying she had picked nuts in her garden that morning for luck. Audemars Piguet grabbed two prizes, including the Iconic Watch Prize for the Royal Oak RD 5, and the Calendar and Astronomy category for what may be its most complicated watch ever.

AP chief executive Ilaria Resta said her brief to the team was to bring the pocket watch into today's world, a complicated watch in compact format that should live in everyday life. Daniel Roth's Extra Plat Rose Gold Skeleton won the Essential category, beating AP's Neo Frame and MB&F's SP One Platinum.

The win came with a nod of solidarity. Accepting for Daniel Roth, La Fabrique du Temps co-founder Enrico Barbasini paused to recognize colleagues at fellow LVMH brand Zenith who are facing potentially significant layoffs. Mathieu Cleguer, who previously worked at Rexhepi's Akrivia, took the Innovation prize for his Inspiration One.

The category winners

Parmigiani Fleurier won the Chronograph category for the FP Tonda Chronograph Mystérieux, which looks like a three-hander until the chronograph engages and hands reveal themselves. Grand Seiko took the Sports prize for its Spring Drive U.F.A. Ushio 300 Diver, a more compact diver shown at Watches and Wonders.

Louis Vuitton won Artistic Crafts for the Tambour Taiko Arty Automata, with Jean Arnault calling it a crazy piece whose dial carries eyelashes that move slightly. Blancpain took Mechanical Exception for its Grande Double Sonnerie, a minute repeater with a price to match, confirming its high-horology credentials.

Otsuka Lotec won the Petite Aiguille, open to watches priced between CHF 4,500 and CHF 10,000. The Challenge category, for watches under CHF 4,500, went to the Baltic X Space One Seconde Majeur, produced with Théo Auffret and Guillaume Laidet, and Piaget took Gemset for its Swinging Pebble.

Konstantin Chaykin's 1.65mm-thin ThinKing was recognized in the Mechanical Exception category. La Vallée won best mechanical clock for its Cosmo, beating the De Bethune and Louis Vuitton collaboration, and Dominique Renaud took the Innovation design honor for his Pulse60 Titanium Block running at 1 hertz.

Patek Philippe's traveling Watch Art Exhibition earned a special prize, accepted by long-time executive Jasmina Steele on behalf of Thierry Stern and his late father Philippe, who died earlier this year. The latest edition had just wrapped in Milan. The winners now travel to London, on display at Watches of Switzerland's Knightsbridge store from November 19 to 23.