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Time You Can Hear: Blancpain’s Grande Double Sonnerie Wins at the GPHG 2026

Blancpain’s Grande Double Sonnerie won the Mechanical Exception Watch Prize at the GPHG 2026 in Geneva, marking the house’s return to the competition. The watch strikes the time in two melodies, one of them written by Eric Singer of KISS, and two watchmakers build it by hand. The evening’s top prize went to the independent watchmaker Rexhep Rexhepi.

Eva Winterer

Blancpain’s Grande Double Sonnerie won the Mechanical Exception Watch Prize at the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève on Saturday. The house calls it the most complicated watch in its history. The prize marks Blancpain’s return to the GPHG after twelve years away, according to Worldtempus.

The watch makes time audible. Four hammers strike four gongs. On the hour, it strikes the time and then plays all four quarters. Blancpain calls it the first grande sonnerie wristwatch with two melodies to choose from. One is the Westminster chime. The other was written for the house by Eric Singer, the drummer of KISS.

● In brief

The brief. Marc A. Hayek, who runs Blancpain, conceived the project eight years before the watch was launched in November 2025. He asked for two selectable melodies and the full Westminster sequence on the hour. “I wanted a Grande Sonnerie that the owner could comfortably wear,” Hayek said, as quoted by La Cote des Montres. The movement has 1,053 components, and the case is 47 mm wide.

The melody. Singer wrote his tune with the keyboardist Derek Sherinian, using only four notes: E, G, F and B. “Composing an entirely new melody is not easy when you’re limited to just four notes,” Hayek told Watchonista.

The hands. Only two watchmakers can assemble the movement, Revolution reported. Romain and Yoann have each spent more than a decade at the manufacture in the Vallée de Joux. One of them builds each movement from start to finish, which takes nearly a year, and signs its gold plaque. Blancpain makes no more than two a year, at about CHF 1.7 million each.

Blancpain watchmaker Yoann holds the Grande Double Sonnerie close to his ear in the wood-lined acoustic chamber in Le Brassus, listening to its chime. Courtesy of Blancpain
Blancpain watchmaker Yoann holds the Grande Double Sonnerie close to his ear in the wood-lined acoustic chamber in Le Brassus, listening to its chime. Courtesy of Blancpain
Romain (left) and Yoann, the two watchmakers who build the Blancpain Grande Double Sonnerie, look at the red-gold watch at a workbench in Le Brassus, a meadow in the window behind them. Courtesy of Blancpain
Romain (left) and Yoann, the two watchmakers who build the Blancpain Grande Double Sonnerie, look at the red-gold watch at a workbench in Le Brassus, a meadow in the window behind them. Courtesy of Blancpain
Close-up of the openworked red-gold dial of the Blancpain Grande Double Sonnerie, with the flying tourbillon at six o'clock and the month ring of the perpetual calendar above it. Courtesy of Blancpain
Close-up of the openworked red-gold dial of the Blancpain Grande Double Sonnerie, with the flying tourbillon at six o’clock and the month ring of the perpetual calendar above it. Courtesy of Blancpain
Marc A. Hayek, President and CEO of Blancpain, and Eric Singer, the drummer of KISS, photographed in 2013. Courtesy of Blancpain
Marc A. Hayek, President and CEO of Blancpain, and Eric Singer, the drummer of KISS, photographed in 2013. Courtesy of Blancpain

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● Why it matters

The prize went to a watch built to be heard. A grande sonnerie sounds the hours and quarters on its own, so the wearer hears the day pass. Blancpain describes the Grande Double Sonnerie as a mechanical musical instrument, and its gongs are tuned by hand.

The evening’s top prize went to an independent watchmaker. Rexhep Rexhepi took the Aiguille d’Or, the GPHG’s top award, for his RRCHF Chronograph Flyback. Konstantin Chaykin won the Audacity Prize with the ThinKing Mystery. Blancpain, owned by the Swatch Group, won its category.

Blancpain comes back with a category prize and a watch that will stay rare. At two pieces a year, every Grande Double Sonnerie will carry the signature of the watchmaker who spent nearly a year building it.

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