SINGAPORE (Oct 8): Three stunning feminine models are the highlights of Patek Philippe’s timepiece collection this year.
Sporty chic
Following variations such as Mysterious Black and Safari Brown, Patek Philippe welcomes Misty Blue Ref 5067A-025 to its Aquanaut Luce collection, marking the range’s most eye-catching stainless steel model yet. The unexpected blue-grey serves to underscore the watch’s modern, youthful design. Like all other models in the Aquanaut Luce range, its refined Aquanaut-style embossed face is accentuated with applied numerals, applied hour markers and broad baton-style hands, all in gold. With its screw-down crown, the watch is water resistant to 120m.
The fire of 46 flawless Top Wesselton-grade diamonds illuminate Ref 5067A-025’s bezel, a defining feature of the highly successful Aquanaut Luce range since it was launched in 2004 for ladies who want to link contemporary chic with a bold accent. Its gently rounded octagonal case is inspired by the design of the Nautilus, and comes with satin-finished flank surfaces. Fitted with a reliable fold-over clasp, the blue-grey composite material of the watch’s strap makes it imminently comfortable, durable and insensitive to saltwater exposure and UV radiation, and matches the dial with its chessboard-style relief pattern.
Taking the wheel
Here comes the feminine interpretation of the Calatrava Pilot Travel Time, which was launched in 2015 as a men’s wristwatch in a white-gold case with a blue dial. The new Ref 7234R-001 combines a rose-gold case with a brown dial that subtly gradates to black towards the periphery. As with Patek Philippe’s tradition in aviator watches, the dial is superbly legible with its applied, sculpted rose-gold numerals and a white luminous coating as well as broad luminous baton-style hands. The vintage brown calfskin strap that it comes with is secured with a rose-gold clevis prong buckle, reminiscent of the harnesses that allowed pilots to keep their survival kits readily deployable.
This also marks the first self-winding Travel Time model in Patek Philippe’s collection for women, its calibre 324 S C FUS providing an easily adjustable display of the second time zone. To move the luminous local-time hour hand clockwise or counter-clockwise, all it takes is the actuation of one of two pushers in the left-hand case flank at eight and 10 o’clock respectively. The pierced hour hand keeps track of home time, and the two time zones are complemented with day and night indicators in apertures at nine and three o’clock.
First and foremost
The Ladies First Chronograph is the only chronograph in Patek Philippe’s watch collection exclusively made for feminine wrists. This year, it is presented in a round rose-gold case to replace the cushion-shaped one of the original Ref 7071. The new Ref 7150/250R-001 features round chronograph pushers with manually guillochéd faces, its compact case accommodating the manually wound calibre CH 29-535 PS movement with an instantaneous 30-minute counter.
Its bezel is set with 72 diamonds and flanked by fluted and curved strap lugs that retain the watch’s original vintage-look details. Wearers are able to admire the watch’s lavish finissage through its box-type sapphire-crystal caseback that is slightly chamfered to echo the profile of the rear bezel. Meanwhile, contemporary style and classic aesthetics are married in the silvery opaline dial, which showcases sculpted Breguet hour and minute hands in rose gold, and a display layout that makes it eminently legible. The watch is worn on a shiny mink-grey alligator leather strap secured with a rose-gold prong buckle set with 27 diamonds.
This article appeared in Issue 851 (Oct 8) of The Edge Singapore.
