Last week in Geneva, the legendary Patek Philippe watch brand celebrated its 175thanniversary. This is a milestone anniversary that few watch brands have yet to achieve. For the event, Patek Philippe transformed its state-of-the-art workshops into a three-dimensional theater, complete with historical and futuristic videos of the brand’s past and its evolution — complete with a phoenix rising and metamorphosing into a great new creature. The vivid and entrancing movie – played out on the walls of the buildings and on temporary curtains and canvasses — was a masterpiece in itself. Following the movie presentation and live ballet, the workshops opened for guests to witness master watchmakers and apprentices side-by-side demonstrating their crafts and revealing the 175th anniversary watches.
Among the new timepieces marking the occasion is the brand’s most complicated wristwatch to date: the Grand Masterchime. The crown jewel of the commemorative collection, the Grand Masterchime is being built in a limited edition of just seven pieces (one for the museum and six for sale) – each retailing for 2.5 million Swiss francs ($2.63 million).
Seven years in the making and holding six patents, the masterpiece houses the all-new Caliber 300 movement with an astonishing 1,366 hand-finished components. The watch offers a Grande sonneries (which chimes the hours and quarters), a petite sonneries (chiming only the quarters), and a minute repeater (chiming the hours, quarters and minutes on demand) and also two unprecedented functions: a patented alarm striking the time and programmable at quarter-hour intervals, and an acoustic date indication – a true first. This is the world’s only watch with three distinct striking mechanisms.
The watch is further endowed with a perpetual calendar and features two dials – fitted into a revolutionary reversing mechanism case that also holds a patent. One side of the dial displays the time and musical functions, while the reverse side shows the calendar and moonphase indications. The entire piece is so richly engraved and decorated that it is truly a work of art as well as a horological masterpiece.
Patek Philippe also unveiled several other more attainable anniversary watches, including the Refs. 5575 and 7175 World Time Moon watch and the Refs. 5975 and 4675 Multi-scale chronographs. The World Time Moon watch is a beauty inside and out and is the first time the brand has paired this famous world time function (a patented mechanism that displays the time in 24 time zones) with a stunning moonphase inner dial consisting of several star and moon disks.
The Multi-scale chronograph is a deft blend of history and classic elegance that only Patek could achieve. The watch offers tachymeter, telemeter, pulsimeter and chronograph functions. Several versions for men and women are being created. Once these beauties make their way to our store, we will be happy to show them to you up close and personal.
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