Every November, the watch world gathers in Geneva for the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève – the night everyone just calls the “Oscars of Watches.” Fifteen categories, six finalists each, and a room full of million-franc complications that most of us will never touch, let alone own. There’s usually a category for watches over a hundred grand, another for tourbillons that took three years to build, and then, tucked down near the bottom, there’s the Challenge Prize – best watch under 2,000 Swiss francs, roughly $2,500 street price.
This year something wild happened. When they opened the envelope for the Challenge category, the winner wasn’t a $2,400 piece from a well-known Japanese brand or a heavily hyped collab from London. It was a $690 dress watch from a small British outfit named Dennison. The exact model: the Natural Stone Tiger Eye in Gold.
Image credit: Dennison
Yeah, six hundred and ninety bucks. Less than a decent pair of boots.
The watch that took home the trophy has a gold PVD cushion case, a genuine tiger-eye stone dial that glows amber and mahogany in the light, a brown embossed leather strap, and a dead-simple two-hand layout. No date window, no sub-dials, no luminous hands – just the brand name printed directly on the underside of the sapphire crystal so nothing clutters that stone. The case stands only 6mm tall, wears 37mm wide, and runs on a Swiss Ronda quartz movement. Thirty meters of water resistance means it’ll survive a rainstorm or washing your hands, but nobody’s taking this one diving.
To give you an idea what it beat: pieces from Christopher Ward, Atelier Wen, Kurono Tokyo, and others that were scraping right up against the $2,500 ceiling. Some of those finalists cost three or four times what the Dennison does. Yet the jury – a couple dozen of the sharpest minds in the industry – looked at everything on the table and said the little British underdog deserved the win.
Image credit: Dennison
The crazy part is Dennison isn’t even trying to play the same game as the heavy hitters. The entire modern Dennison collection is built around one single case shape – a softened cushion design pulled from the company’s 1960s archives and cleaned up by Emmanuel Gueit, the same guy who drew the Royal Oak Offshore back in the day. One case, dozens of dial variations. That’s it. While half the industry is chasing meteorite, forged carbon, or salmon guilloché, Dennison just keeps cutting different stones and slapping them into the same 6mm-thick gold or steel shell.
And somehow it works.
Tiger eye stone dials were everywhere in 2025. You couldn’t scroll Instagram without seeing another brand announce their version. Most looked like someone dropped a rock on a generic watch and called it a day. Dennison did it different. The cushion shape frames the stone perfectly, the warm gold PVD case plays off the amber and orange bands running through the tiger eye, and that brown leather strap ties the whole thing together like it grew that way. It’s the kind of watch that looks like it should cost four figures when it’s sitting on your wrist under a navy suit or a denim shirt.
The judges clearly saw the same thing. In a field full of watches trying to shout “look at me,” the Dennison whispered and still won the room.
Image credit: Dennison
If you’re wondering whether you can actually buy the award-winning version – yes, you can. Head straight to Dennison’s site and the Natural Stone Tiger Eye in Gold is still in stock at $690. They also do the exact same watch in polished steel for the same money if gold isn’t your thing. Want something a little different? They just released a dual-time version of the tiger eye that runs $890.
Look, nobody is pretending this is a mechanical masterpiece hand-built by some grey-haired genius in the Vallée de Joux. It’s a quartz watch with a stone dial and a whole lot of style. But sometimes that’s exactly what the moment calls for – something honest, good-looking, and priced like the company isn’t trying to prove anything to anybody.
The 25th GPHG just reminded the entire industry that you don’t need six figures to make something beautiful. Sometimes all it takes is a 1960s case, a chunk of tiger eye, and the guts to keep the price under seven hundred bucks.
In a year when watch prices only seemed to go one direction, that feels like a knockout punch straight out of Rocky Balboa’s playbook.
And just like Rocky, this underdog isn’t going anywhere. The eye of the tiger is officially on the wrist – for less than the cost of a tank of gas and a good steak dinner.
