Building Bridges

Bridges abound in mechanical watchmaking, but none are iconic in the way the Bridges collection from Girard-Perregaux is. We uncover why it is the oldest movement design still in production today

All watch brands hope to have an icon in their collection at some point in their history a readily-identified watch that passes the test of time, that becomes a signature of its maker's ethos year after year. But few names in watchmaking can claim that their icon is more than 150 years old; that it is as much an expression of technical expertise as it is an expression of a certain aesthetic; nor that, in times in which the names given to watches can lack a certain romance, its apex expression carries the rather unexpected moniker of La Esmeralda. This is Girard-Perregaux's Bridges collection.

"Some icons are such that people think of them before they think of the brand behind them. And collectors tend to want a Bridges model first and La Esmeralda is exemplary of the collection," says Clemence Dubois, chief product officer for Girard-Perregaux, newly independent again after the luxury conglomerate Kering Group sold it, and sister brand Ulysse Nardin to the brands' own management group Sowind. It was, essentially, a management buy-out.

Consider the latest edition of Girard-Perregaux's Bridges tourbillon watches - a La Esmeralda in gold, part of the company's 'A Secret' Eternity Edition line. By modern tastes, the design might certainly be considered ornate, with hand-engraved case, grand feu enamel dial and even hand-carved relief of two horses, one apparently galloping along the inner circumference of the bezel. There is the concave bevelling, rather than the usual rounded or flat finish, which Girard-Perregaux pioneered. But that busyness of form belies a backstory of progressive and super-contemporary design.

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