Demystifying Patek Philippe
Why the perpetual calendar grand complication watch is one of the most expensive timepieces—‘It’s done with the smallest parts, in the smallest case possible’
Most customers buy a Patek Philippe owing to the status it signifies, not so much because they have full understanding of the mechanical complications that go into the prized artisanal watches.
This was why the luxury Swiss watchmaker and its exclusive local partner, Lucerne, recently invited a select group of VIP clients, watch collectors, aficionados and the media to a technical presentation, in a bid to “demystify Patek Philippe’s perpetual calendar grand complication watches,” Emerson Yao, managing director of the Lucerne Group, said.
Perpetual calendars are emblematic of Patek Philippe, the grand complication the brand is most known for.
Deepa Chatrath, Patek Philippe’s general manager for Southeast Asia, who gave a detailed history of calendars relative to watchmaking, admitted that the world of mechanical watches is a complex and esoteric subject.
“Everybody knows Patek. People come up to us and they say they like our campaign,” she said, referring to its popular slogan, “You never actually own a Patek Philippe. You merely take care of it for the next generation.”
“But every Patek watch has a lot of artisanal elements. If you don’t explain it, it becomes too intimidating.”
Sophisticated
Perpetual calendar, put simply, is a sophisticated watch complication that displays the date, day, month and leap years.
It’s a highly complex mechanism that recognizes the number of days in the calendar—whether 28 days, 30 days, 31 days, or 29 days during a leap year, so the date jumps right to 1 at the end of a month, without needing manual adjustments.
Chatrath said that it’s something “we take it for granted now because we can look at our phones and we see the date.”
But in the technical world of mechanical watchmaking, “It’s a challenge to make this.”
Patek Philippe has been making perpetual calendars since the beginning of its nearly 180-year history, but it was only 93 years ago that it put the complication in wristwatches.
It now has a vast collection of perpetual calendar models, some combined with other grand complications.
There are also simpler annual calendars that need manual adjustments five times a year—at the end of February and the four months with 30 days—and are more accessible price-wise.
Patek’s newest model, launched recently in Basel, is the Nautilus 5740/1G-001 Perpetual Calendar in white gold, the first perpetual calendar in its Nautilus family.
It’s set for release later this year, at approximately P5.7 million apiece.
Chatrath said the Philippine market is doing “very good, and it’s very encouraging for us.”
The only problem at Patek, she said, is the allocation. The brand is quite careful of whom to sell, since some buyers have been known to resell at a markup. “And we don’t want that for our clients,” she said.
“Perpetual calendar Patek’s favorite grand complication,” Chatrath noted.
“Patek puts the greatest amount of effort on the perpetual calendar. Almost every year, you will have something on the perpetual calendar from us. It’s Patek’s greatest expertise.” Every collector’s goal is to bag a Patek perpetual calendar, she added.
She went on to elaborate on why perpetual calendars are so expensive.
“What explains the value? Watchmakers train many, many years—the technicality, the systems of champers, springs and levers that are very, very complex to adjust.”
Hand-finished
A Patek watch has an average of 327 miniscule components, and each is hand-finished from beginning to end, taking hundreds of hours to make. The technical knowhow is passed down through generations of watchmakers.
The late 1970s to early 1980s were a dark period in Swiss watchmaking, as the Japanese quartz watches rose in popularity.
Many companies in the Swiss Jura mountains, the hub of watchmaking, shuttered their businesses.
Patek’s then-president, Philippe Stern, father of Thierry Stern, the current president, decided to forge on. He believed that “once lost, the centuriesold knowhow will never be recovered.”
“When everybody else was losing faith, what he gave as a challenge to his people was to make the world’s slimmest perpetual calendar,” Chatrath said.
His decision would define Patek’s rise in the industry.
“When you own a Patek, you know that you’re buying something highly complicated, but it’s done with the smallest parts, in the smallest case possible,” she said.
“For watchmakers it’s easier to make big watches. We get asked, why doesn’t Patek make more of what’s trendy in fashion? In Asia, we love big watches.
“But once you shift the complications into bigger watches, the watchmakers will forget the skill. You have to make one every decade to have that kind of slimness.”
She added, “The beauty of a Patek is that you forget that you’re wearing a watch. It’s beautiful and perfectly designed.”