The Way Gérald Genta Intended: The Geneva Minute Repeater Golden Obsidian

The Gérald Genta brand is putting its legendary founder’s philosophy at the top of its priorities. For Geneva Watch Days 2026, Gérald Genta releases a new Golden Obsidian version of the Geneva Minute Repeater. This 40mm 3N yellow gold novelty comes after the 2025 Geneva Minute Repeater Black Onyx. It also houses the manually wound caliber GG-022. Its cushion-shaped, vintage-inspired case is only 9.6mm thick and was designed and developed by Matthieu Hegi specifically to accommodate acoustic performance.

The minute repeater was one of Gérald Genta’s favorite complications. And, as we know, his design language was all about unique character that provokes an emotional response. The acoustic nature of minute repeaters made them the logical pick for Genta’s horological obsessions. He famously collaborated with master watchmaker Pierre-Michel Golay, whose passion for opera bled into the acoustic development of Genta’s minute repeaters. In the 1980s, our favorite watch designer was already developing automatic and water-resistant versions, and it’s nice to see the modern brand continuing on his path.

The case makes or breaks the music

The Geneva collection is named after the Mecca of watchmaking, the city of Geneva, Switzerland, where the brand was founded in 1969. At the core of the collection is l’esprit de Genève, the spirit of Geneva. That idea brings together Geneva’s traditional watchmaking with Genta’s more playful, artistic side. The rounded cushion shape and gadroons on the case sides are very Genta, and they look quite fresh and modern on this new version. But for a minute repeater, the case isn’t just about looks. It also plays a huge role in how the watch sounds.

Matthieu Hegi designed the Geneva Minute Repeater’s 9.6mm-thick case specifically with this in mind. The walls get down to just 0.6mm at their thinnest point, and both the bezel and caseback are hollowed out internally. Even the sapphire crystal is 0.2mm thinner than usual, at 0.8mm. Basically, the brand considered everything possible to let the sound move more freely. We tend to talk about minute repeaters as movement-focused watches, but the case is also part of the instrument. You can have beautifully made gongs and hammers, but if the case doesn’t let them do their thing, you’re leaving a lot on the table. Gérald Genta was apparently pretty strict about this.

The 3N yellow gold also makes sense here. Apart from looking delicious with the dial’s brown tones, the material is chosen for its acoustic properties. According to the brand, it gives the sound a warmer and purer resonance. And “warm” is probably the best word for the whole watch. The case is thin but not fragile. The bezel and case back screw directly together. These are tiny details, but they matter when you’re trying to make a minute repeater as good as possible.

A lot of substance with this pretty face

Visually, the Geneva Minute Repeater Golden Obsidian’s dial might actually be my favorite part. Golden obsidian forms naturally through the rapid cooling of volcanic lava, so there is no perfectly uniform surface here. The rest of the dial is kept pretty clean. Rounded yellow-gold indexes and hands sit over the stone, with a white printed minute track around the edge. The inner part of the track feels circular, while the outside follows the case’s cushion shape. So depending on how you look at it, the dial almost shifts between being round and square. Again, the small details are important.

The GG-002 is a manually wound minute repeater developed entirely in-house at La Fabrique du Temps Louis Vuitton by Enrico Barbasini and Michel Navas. The gongs are individually cut and then tuned by ear and by hand, which is exactly the sort of old-school craftsmanship you want to hear about on a watch like this. It also features black-polished hammers and a traditional single-revolution gong construction designed to produce a clear, crystalline chime.

The GG-002 is also a very handsome caliber replete with manual-applied Côtes de Genève, hand-beveled angles, and circular graining. Polished gold masselottes on the balance regulate its inertia, and the octagonal inertia wheel is a small but very obvious nod to Genta’s love of geometric shapes. The movement runs at 3 Hz and provides an impressive 80-hour power reserve.

Final thoughts on the Gérald Genta Geneva Minute Repeater Golden Obsidian

The whole watch comes together because the late Gérald Genta wasn’t interested in complications for their difficulty. Rather, he liked the emotional side of them. A minute repeater makes you interact with the watch, listen to it, and experience something you can’t get from looking at pictures and reading articles. The Geneva Minute Repeater Golden Obsidian (price on request) makes the complication much more elegant and wearable. What makes this Gérald Genta particularly interesting, in my humble opinion, is that it’s not an old Genta piece-by-piece copy. It takes one of the complications he cared about most and builds a modern watch around the same basic idea: technical watchmaking should make you feel something.

This Golden Obsidian version certainly has the technical side covered, and has character. The warm obsidian dial, yellow gold case, and very Genta-characteristic geometry give it plenty of personality, while all the crazy work inside the case is there for a reason.

What do you guys think about the Geneva Minute Repeater Golden Obsidian? Do you like it more than its Black Onyx predecessor? Is the modern Gérald Genta brand on the right path? Dear friends, let’s chat!