Patek Philippe: As Time Goes By

as time goes by

PATEK PHILIPPE’S CALENDAR WATCHES TRACK THE YEARS WITH RELENTLESS PRECISION. ONE OF THEM NEEDN’T BE ADJUSTED TILL FEBRUARY 2100. By Christen Fisher

“Time sometimes flies like a bird, sometimes crawls like a snail; but a man is happiest when he does not even notice whether it passes swiftly or slowly,” wrote Ivan Turgenev in his 1862 masterpiece Fathers and Sons. Indeed, our perception of time is intertwined with emotion. Anxiety and boredom make us feel that time is moving very slowly, while amid excitement, activity or joy we perceive it as rushing by.

We can’t actually make that hour in the dentist’s chair not feel eternal, or stop that sunny afternoon on the beach from whizzing by. All we can do is invest in the best possible machine to track time’s passing with dependable impartiality. That’s where Patek Philippe comes in. And its impeccable precision of seconds and minutes and hours is carried on through the years with its calendar watches, ranging from simple to perpetual.

Simple calendar watches display the date through an aperture or by means of a hand, indicating the number of the day within the month from 1 to 31. To maintain the correct date, these wristwatches must be manually adjusted at the end of thirty days and at the end of February. Patek’s current collection features several simple calendars including Reference 7300/1200A-011 Ladies Twenty~4 Automatic. Created for the modern, active woman, the Twenty~4 Automatic is available in a new steel version with an olive-green dial highlighted by a sunburst finish and a diamondenhanced bezel. The movement’s sophisticated architecture and exquisite finishing are revealed through a transparent sapphire case-back. The entirely hand-polished steel bracelet is fitted with a patented fold-over clasp secured by four independent catches.

Another example of a simple calendar is the Reference 5268/200R Aquanaut Luce in rose gold with a matte white dial embossed with Aquanaut pattern and featuring gold applied numerals. The sporty, chic look of the self-winding rose gold Aquanaut Luce has been revisited in a larger diameter (38.8 millimeters) and fitted with a new integrated matte white strap. It’s water-resistant to 120 meters, and its rounded octagonal case is enhanced by polished and satin finishes and a bezel containing 48 diamonds. The self-winding 26-330 S C movement is equipped with a “stop seconds” function serving to set time to the exact second.

Annual calendars, a complication patented by Patek in 1996, require only a single manual adjustment once each year at the end of February. The current collection features Reference 4947/1A Annual Calendar, a 38-millimeter watch to suit both men’s and ladies’ wrists. Available in stainless steel with a blue vertical and horizontal satin-finish dial and gold applied numerals, the watch contains a self-winding mechanical movement caliber 324 S QA LU. The day and month are displayed by hands while the date is shown in an aperture. This watch also features a moon phase and a sweep seconds hand.

The most technologically complex calendar watch is the perpetual calendar. The owner of this watch can spend a lifetime letting time march at a steady pace without ever having to notice whether its passage feels slow or quick, as this watch takes into account all monthly variations including those in a leap year. It will not need to be adjusted manually until the year 2100 (the next century year not divisible by 400). This year, Patek introduced a new version of this grand complication, the Reference 5236P-001 In-line Perpetual Calendar, which displays the day, date and month on a single line in an elongated aperture beneath 12 o’clock in addition to a small seconds dial as well as day/night and leap year indicators in apertures. Patek designed a new self-winding movement, caliber 31-260 PS QL, for which three patent applications have been filed. To assure the largest possible calendar display on a single line with optimized legibility, the company created a system with two date disks—one for the tens and one for the units—so that the calendar display consists of four disks—one for the day, two for the date and one for the month—all perfectly embedded in the same plane. This system alone required an additional 118 parts in comparison with a conventional perpetual calendar display. Housed in an elegant platinum 41-millimeter case framing a vertical satin-finished blue dial with a black-gradient rim, it is a horological marvel.

As time flies—or crawls—in your life, you may wish to consider a calendar watch from the Patek Philippe collection, and leave the monitoring of time to time-tested experts. Because as far as we know, whatever its speed, you have only the one life.

Clockwise from top left: Patek Philippe’s self-winding Ref. #4947 features a round Calatrava-type polished steel case with a 38mm diameter; the sporty chic look of the self-winding rose gold Aquanaut Luce Ref. #5268 has been revisited in a 38.8 mm and fitted with a new integrated strap, but the elegant matte white remains; on the Ref. #5236 Grand Complications, the day, date and month appear in a large single aperture at 12 o’clock; the Twenty~4 Automatic Ref. #7300 appears in a new steel version featuring an olive green dial with gold applied numerals and a sunburst finish.