Inside Vacheron Constantin’s Bold Plan to “Reconnect” With Its Past

To mark its 270th anniversary, Vacheron Constantin is launching the world’s first watch concours. 

How do you celebrate the very best of a watch company’s creations? Easy enough for a young brand, perhaps — but what about the oldest continuously operating watchmaker in Switzerland, which has just celebrated its 270th anniversary? Collectors place a premium on condition, rarity, complexity, and provenance, as well as historical significance for the brand, but the only chance most get to appraise any of these qualities is when watches come up for sale. A better question might simply be: how do you even go about locating the best of the best? A new concept, the world’s first-ever Concours d’Élégance Horlogère, might provide some answers. 

Conceived by auctioneer and consultant Aurel Bacs, best known for his work with auction house Phillips (with whom the event is also jointly organized), and focusing exclusively on vintage Vacheron watches, the concours will take place in November 2026. Thanks to that unbroken lineage, Vacheron Constantin has a pretty good record of every watch that has left its doors, but even its leather-backed sales ledgers only tell part of the story. The hope is that through this project, the venerable brand will be able to reconnect with some of its most desirable vintage references — and perhaps discover a few long-forgotten favorites. 

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The word ‘concours’ summons images of manicured lawns strewn with supercars, and Bacs’s concept borrows some elements of the motoring format. While it’s restricted to the work of one maker, it will still involve a panel of expert judges. For its inaugural edition, the Concours d’Élégance Horlogère breaks submissions down into seven categories including ‘chiming watches,’ ‘astronomical complications,’ and one named simply ‘design.’ Entry is free, there is no prize on offer beyond a trophy and the honor of being named the best, and the winning watches will be displayed to the public at a venue in central Geneva. 

“It’s really open to anything,” says Morgan Maillard, style and heritage expert at Vacheron Constantin, and one of the members of the concours’ judging panel. “It could be a King Fuad pocket watch with 15 complications [legendary one-off pieces made for the former king of Egypt] or something you bought in a flea market somewhere and have restored with passion.” 

“In our collection, we have around 600 timepieces, but in 270 years we have produced many more than this,” he continues. “Most of the Vacheron Constantin collection is in the wild; there are some we don’t know where they are now, so a nice part of this is to reconnect with them.” 

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An open call for submissions closed at the end of April, after which the Vacheron team will sift through the hundreds — perhaps even thousands — of candidates to put together a shortlist of five per category. These will be invited to submit their watch for in-person judging, and to be part of the public exhibition.

Already, Maillard says the process has been illuminating. “I’ve seen some surprising design pieces coming in with their box and papers, all the original documents, which means you have more than just a timepiece, you have the story around it. One watch so far has really impressed me: an early-19th-century quarter-repeater pocket watch with a guilloché dial in stunning condition. The movement just looks untouched — it’s so impressive.” 

Alongside Maillard, Bacs, and Vacheron style and heritage director Christian Selmoni, the judging panel comprises a mixture of prominent journalists, collectors, retailers, and of course, a watchmaker. Fans of the brand might be surprised to see the latter name on the list, however. Rather than an expert from within Vacheron’s restoration department or its most senior in-house watchmaker, the only hands-on horological talent on the panel is Felix Baumgartner, one half of the duo behind iconoclastic indie watch brand Urwerk. But his perspective, explains Maillard, is invaluable. 

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“Felix was a great pick because, first of all, he’s a young and brilliant watchmaker, but into a completely different type of work to us. Also, he used to do some work on vintage watches when he was younger, and we know that included some Vacheron Constantin pieces,” says Maillard. “He has a great deal of knowledge, and we didn’t just want it to be Vacheron fans, who are going to turn up with a Vacheron on their wrist.” 

The idea of judging the ‘best’ vintage watches might seem reductive to some (although one suspects that some collectors may take great pride in winning — and it will do their prized possession’s value no harm either), but for Vacheron the main emphasis is on the educational and exploratory aspects. The company, which already operates a heritage retail program, Les Collectionneurs, says there is no expectation that the submission process will have a commercial upside. The creation of the format also raises the possibility of it becoming a regular fixture in the watchmaking calendar, but no firm commitment has been made. 

Emphasizing that for now, all eyes are focused on the debut edition, Maillard agrees that if successful, the idea has potential to expand and improve — maybe even incorporating other brands along the way. “If there are going to be other editions, we have some ideas,” he says.