Girard Perregaux

G'day,

i´d like to share some early and quick impressions of a very exiting day!
A preliminary short note, with more to come!

On May 25, Girard-Perregaux and JeanRichard, the brands of the SOWIND Group, were honoured and happy to welcome 10 aspiring new watchmakers.

A guided tour of the manufactures and facilities in La Chaux-De-Fonds, accompanied by the SOWIND Group´s Museum Curator Willy Schweizer, was followed with great interest and led to a multitude of insights.
An interesting detail to note may be almost all aspiring watchmakers came well prepared with photo equipment, which came to good use when having a visit to literally any place of Girard-Perregaux and JeanRichard from floor to roof. No aspect was left out, from parts production over Research&Development up to the final assembly of timepieces.

The Haute Horlogerie devision, the SOWIND Group´s birth place of the famous Three Gold Bridges, turned out to be a particularly interesting place to see. Which may not be a surprise for a group of aspiring watchmakers, of which every member identified himself as a very knowing enthusiast of fine timepieces very soon

One of the highlights of the day seemed to be encountering the 2007 collection of Girard-Perregaux, which included all new 2007 models and a variety of GP´s most cherished pieces up to the Haute Horlogerie range. Which didn´t fail to impact every of the aspiring watchmakers, which is no surprise given all of them to be watch lovers!

It was a most exciting day and evening, with new friends found.
My thanks to Girard-Perregaux and JeanRichard for a wonderful day and all fellow aspiring watchmakers for a memorable meeting!
I´ll leave it to each of you to identify yourself and add your impressions

Greetings from La Chaux-De-Fonds,

Peter

.

Peter,

thanks for sharing the beautiful pictures.

rgds,

ed

G'day,

just as an impression, this may be a telling view. Particularly the table on the right had some nice toys...



Off to bed early today - it´s been a long drive home. But there´s a lot more to come!

Cheers,

Peter

thanks for sharing them...

have a safe journey,

ed

Thanks Peter for the inside track.

Bill

Howdy,

the Laureato "USA-98" range for BMW ORACLE Racing features an interesting and for sure unusual range of pieces; just that i´d be afraid at 46mm in diameter, it will be not easy to handle for most female wrists.

Alas, there´s the dedicated female unit in the line and measuring 35mm in diameter, it caters the preferred size of the "stronger sex". The Lady Chronograph also offers the added benefit of GP´s own column-wheel automatic chronograph movement (at the time of release the smallest in the world, that is):





The Lady Chronograph is available without diamond-set bezel as well; of the model as pictured, only 50 pieces are to be made. Of course the rubber strap can be had for both models:









With thanks to lovely Stefania of Girard-Perregaux Suisse

Cheers,

Peter

Hi Peter,

I need more hours in the day to enjoy all your posts and pictures.  Already spending too many but eh it only means a few less hors of sleep.  Time when spent when you consider we are asleep for a third of our life.  That adds up....

Thanks

Bill

It was very interesting, exciting, fun and simply a great pleasure being one of the members of the aspiring watchmakers ... Great guys - all of them!
It will stay a long time in my memory.
It was especially astonishing to see the breath and depth of GPs capabilities and dedication towards watch making but also towards customer focus! I was very impressed!  Thanks here again also to Luigi, Eduard and Willy Schweitzer for the perfect guiding and support. Not at all taken for granted!!

Peter, please forward me your adress (PM) - the CD with my picture is already prepared for you...

It really is hard to put into words the experience of yesterday at GP. The pictures help, but a perfectly laid out schedule, incredible surroundings and a manufacture of such integrity and carefully thought out integration was simply inspiring.
The staff who could answer any question offered with such accuracy and ease and a CEO that took the time to have dinner with group was in a word, perfect. Seeing tourbillon's produced with such intricate care and with tools, like wood, that are so unimaginable until they have been seen by the naked eye, really an amazing look into the watch making world. Then to ice the cake, seeing so many watches in the museum and having the opportunity later to handle and try on all the different lines. Well, let's just say I am still overwhelmed today and will send more later. Did I mention we got to see the Jackpot, oh yes! It is simply unreal. Thanks again to everyone involved and special thanks to Peter for putting it all toghether. Looking forward to all the pictures.
Best to all,
Tim

As for Peter, Tim and The Guys and gals from GP. I say THANK YOU for a fantastic experience.

As said earlier, friends were made, cultures and nationalities were met and appreciated. Not to forget we saw beautifull watches.

Most of all i now realize how fortunate i have been (and am).
It will take me a while to come to grips with what i have seen along with the great people i have met who truly have passion for GP.

For those who were there. Thanks for a great meeting.
For those who were not...make sure your there next time,

Kind regards

Hans-Jurgen
The Netherlands

[img]http://img295.imageshack.us/img295/3894/20070525gp194jp9.jpg[/img]

G'day,

wow, that´s great!
Thanks a lot!

Love the wrist shot of the Jackpot

Well, it DID pay to check the equipment at times:




Did you happen to take a picture of the wall clock?
Admittedly i missed to take one myself, so that would be very cool!

Cheers,

Peter

very nice shot esp the Jackpot on the wrist..

thanks for sharing them,

ed

nice shots!  thanks.

BR and cheers from Zürich - Markus

love the shot esp of those cases stack up together.

nice

thanks for the lovely pictures,

ed

Hello Guys,

Just returned back home after a very pleasant and informational experience. This was my first visit at any factory and I have to say it is a must for every watch purist.

I would like to thank Peter for organizing the event and the GP team (Xaviar and Edouard) who accepted us and was very friendly.  Also I would like to thank Mr. Stefano who attended the very nice dinner we had and he was very willing to answer any questions I had.

After visiting the factory my conseption for GP watches has positively change. It is not easy to explain in a few words what I have seen. The process and the work GP does at the factory is amazing! Also the watches that we could see and touch was an experience as was the first time I saw so many GP watches at one location available to pick them up and look at them closely. Although I liked a lot the most amazing one was the Jackpot, unfortunately we did not win any money while playing with it!

Anyway, thanks again and hope to see you guys soon. 

Wow!! That's all I can say.  I really want to go and visit the GP factory at La Chaux-de-Fonds now after seeing those wonderful photos.  Any chance to find out the procedure to arrange such visit? Really awesome to see so many of my favourite watches together.  Oh, the GP4500 movement looks really nicely finished too by the way.  You guys are really lucky fellows to have the chance to handle the Jackpot. 

Hi,

Thank you very much and congratulations Peter and all the team at Girard-Perregaux, Mr Macaluso, Mr Schweizer, Xavier, Edouard, and all their colleagues.

Thanks also a lot to the Purist group that participated as this day was a permanent exchange and it turned out to be a real pleasure to be there. I wish to see other meetings of this kind soon.

The downside of the trip is that I've seen, and many others too, too many GP watches that I will have a hard time to resist from buying 

Girard-Perregaux is truly a kind of  "under evaluated" marvel manufacture that deserves IMO even more respect than it gets. The years to come are definitely going to be the time of a hard battle for the first ranks of high horology companies and GP won't be for nothing in the competition.....

I have two champions now 

Cheers

Dje

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