With 21 patents and over 1053 parts, is this the Blancpain grail watch that collectors have been waiting for?
Blancpain is the oldest registered watch brand in the world, founded in 1735 by Jehan-Jaques Blancpain in Villeret, Switzerland. For many, its legacy is defined by the Fifty Fathoms dive watch first, and by the classic Villeret collection second. But today, facing strong independent competition, the manufacture has doubled down on uncompromising craft with the Grande Double Sonnerie.
A week ago, Marc Hayek, the visibly proud Blancpain CEO, opened the Swiss manufacture to journalists to show off the new watch, which is a reposition the Vallèe du Joux brand in the top tier of watchmaking. In 2025, this space is increasingly inhabited by fiercely creative independents. Hayek has a challenging task: setting the bar sky-high with the Grande Double Sonnerie.
What does Blancpain need to rise to the independent competition and win collectors’ hearts in the process? Christian Lattmann, VP of product at the company, admits that while the house has been in high watchmaking for a long time, recent years have focused on its sports watch, the Fifty Fathoms. He makes it clear though, that a return to the upper echelons of watchmaking has been a guiding light for the brand.
But what does a $2 million (around €1.72 million) watch signify for Blancpain? The Grande Double Sonnerie is an eight-year labor of love that comprises a baffling 1,200 technical drawings and 21 patents, 13 of which were integrated into the final construction of the movement. There are 1,053 components in the movement out of 1,116 total, all designed, produced, assembled, tested, and decorated in-house.
Handling the watch will leave even the most future-focused Gen-Z minimalist speechless, though fully explaining the depths of the Grande Double Sonnerie requires a thesis. But despite its complexity and real estate-sized price tag, Hayek insists horological art is still about emotions. “Listening to a sonnerie is like tasting a grand wine,” he says. “It is not merely a question of volume, but the clarity, the resonance, the persistence, the richness. Savoring the sounding of a prestige sonnerie is an emotional experience.”
Blancpain’s construction uses two manually wound spring barrels, one for timekeeping and one for the entire chiming suite, including the minute repeater. Adding another dimension, traditional chiming mechanisms rely on two notes, while under Hayek’s direction, Blancpain has imagined a four-note composition using E, G, F, and B requiring four hammers.
Adding to its appeal is the fact that this is the first grande sonnerie ever made with two switchable melodies, one of them composed by watch collector and drummer in Kiss, Eric Singer. “What really turned out to be a challenge was realizing there were only four notes available,” says Singer. “That might sound like a lot for a watch, but for a musician, it’s an immense limitation and turning that constraint into music was the real puzzle.”
After testing, gold proved the most acoustically refined for the watch’s sound, and one of 13 patents is a gold acoustic membrane under the bezel that serves as a resonator. But the Grande Double Sonnerie is not all about the music. It also features Blancpain’s flying tourbillon, introduced in 1989. This is visible on a dial designed specifically to give each complication room to breathe, with no visual overlap. Operating at 4 Hz with a silicon balance spring that improves amplitude stability, its mirror-polished cage amplifies the dial’s visual drama as its centerpiece.
A feature that draws grail-attention on its own is the perpetual calendar, which features a retrograde display. Blancpain has upped the ante by integrating it in the manufacture movement rather than using a module that would cover parts of the movement and add thickness. With over a thousand parts, each watch takes an entire year to produce, test, and assemble (twice). Built up on an 18-karat gold mainplate with hand-finished 18-karat gold bridgework, the movement contains 135 sharp interior angles, an unmistakable signature of true haute horlogerie. The pride among the craftspeople at the manufacture was palpable.
Lattmann knows this is a grand move for a commercial group brand, but he embraces the risk. “I always say that if we are afraid to make mistakes or to do wrong like a child, we will never try,” he says. At a certain point, we need to take risks.” Hayek meanwhile, stressed that he doesn’t want to see the piece sit in a vault. “I wanted a Grande Sonnerie that the owner could comfortably wear, not an exercise that would merely reside in a safe, and, above all, a watch that would make you smile as it sounds the time, that would trigger real emotion,” he says.
he Grande Double Sonnerie is assembled by only two watchmakers, each assembling the more than 1,000 components from start to finish. Every watch represents almost a full year of work, and the watchmaker engraves his signature on a gold plaque inside the movement after final testing. This is a quiet, personal tribute to one of watchmaking’s most demanding creations.
The Blancpain Grande Sonnerie is also robust. It has a remarkable power reserve for its number of complications, totaling 96 hours. The movement features separate power-reserve indicators for the movement and the chiming mechanism, with 12 full hours in the power-hungry Grande Sonnerie mode. At 47 mm x 54 mm, this is not a svelte watch, but its intricacy will certainly appeal to high horology collectors. Each watch can be custom-made to the owner’s specifications, ensuring absolute exclusivity.
In moments alone with both Hayek, Blancpain’s craftsmen, and Lattmann, one thing is clear: The intensely personal relationship they have with their work is evident in the Grande Double Sonnerie. It shows in every polished bevel and in each crisp tone of the sonnerie’s chime.
