Rethinking Time: Two references from Patek Philippe that break convention.

An hour hand, a minute hand, and twelve evenly spaced hour markers; this is the standard blueprint of almost every single analogue timekeeper since the 17 ^th century, around the time when most clocks became accurate enough to warrant the presence of a minute hand. For most people, it’s likely every single watch you have ever seen, worn, or imagined follows that blueprint.

Unveiled at Watches & Wonders 2023, its 24-hour dial stood out as something wholly unique in the catalogue. Designed to maximise its time-telling utility to frequent travellers, it features Patek’s patented travel-time system, complemented by 24 hand-applied luminescent hour markers (44 if you’re really counting everything). This enables the display of two hour hands – one filled with luminescent material, the time where you are in the world, and the other skeletonised, the time back home.

The 24-hour display also has historical significance for the brand, as they took inspiration from watches they produced during the 1920s for the famed Brazilian retailer Gondolo & Labouriau. Examples of these can be found proudly displayed in the Patek Philippe Museum in Geneva (alongside an unfathomable number of other highly significant watches and clocks from throughout the history of timekeeping).

The surface of the navy blue dial offers three distinct finishes creating a beautiful play of light, with a circular striated dial centre, circular satin-finishing as the backdrop for the hour markers and a fine snailing inside the small seconds counter. We have come to expect nothing short of perfection when it comes to Patek Philippe’s dial finishing and attention to detail, and this dial will excite even the most discerning horological connoisseur.

Beating away inside the fully polished 42mm rose gold case is the lavishly finished movement 31-260 PS FUS 24H, with off-centre platinum mini-rotor. The ultra-thin construction of this calibre enabled Patek to offer the watch with extremely elegant proportions (9.85mm thick), really hammering home the feeling of this being an easy-wearing travel companion. Despite its thinness, the designers have managed to create a very distinctive case silhouette, featuring curved two-tier lugs and a delicately rounded case middle. To maintain its clean lines, with no external pushers to adjust the local time, the engineers created a patented system where the local hour hand can be moved in one-hour increments, forwards or backwards, using only the crown pulled out to its intermediate position.

Originally entering the collections in 2012 with a strikingly scientific colourway before the launch of the current rose gold reference in 2019, the Annual Calendar Regulator stands out as the first time Patek has adorned a wristwatch with a regulator-style display.

The hours hand, minutes hand and seconds hand each stand alone, separated across the length of the dial. The minutes take centre stage of the vertically satin-brushed graphite colour dial, with the hours and seconds in finely snailed ebony black subdials at 12 o’clock and 6 o’clock respectively.

This design enables the wearer to both set and read the minutes with the highest degree of accuracy – and for good reason. The history behind regulator-style displays begins in watchmaking workshops of yesteryear. At the front of the workshop, they would very often have a long case clock or wall clock featuring this unusual layout so that the watchmakers calibrating and regulating their creations can have the clearest possible view of the minutes hand, even from the rearmost workbenches.

Understandably, these clocks had to be the most accurate timekeeper in the workshop to reliably function as a reference from which each watchmaker could adjust their watches to. The 5235/50R nods to this necessity for reliability but utilising some cutting-edge technologies and optimisations, originating from Patek’s Advanced Research department. Crucially, this would be the Pulsomax® escapement with Silinvar® escape wheel. This technical innovation is offered to very few models within the Patek Philippe collections and works to enhance efficiency, accuracy and reliability of the timekeeping due to its exceptional resistance to heat, wear, corrosion, magnetism and shocks. Coupled with the Spiromax® balance spring in Silinvar®, you can comfortably rely on the 5235/50R to act as the reference timekeeper to most all other watches in your collection if you so desire.

The case design isn’t something to be glossed over, either. The 40mm rose gold case features satin-brushed flanks with polished bezel and top side of the lugs. The case silhouette is very reminiscent of the 3448 perpetual calendar reference, notably its thin bezel and short, angular lugs.

This reference currently holds the title of being Patek’s thinnest annual calendar, thanks to the ultra-thin movement 31-260 QA REG. This base calibre is actually shared with the 5224R and thus features a mini-rotor in 22k yellow gold for automatic winding.

The annual calendar is displayed with apertures for the day of the week, month and date arranged neatly around the dial. For those who aren’t aware, Patek Philippe were the creators of this useful complication in 1996, which immediately became a staple within the collection – branching out into the Nautilus and more recently the Aquanaut families with the references 5726 and 5261. Watches fitted with this complication are capable of self-adjusting the calendar throughout the year to accommodate 30- and 31-day months. The only manual adjustment needed comes at the end of February.

In conclusion, these two references stand out in even the most diverse and vast personal collections as a genuine point of difference. For those looking to add something entirely different to an existing collection or begin their Patek Philippe tradition with exceptional design that truly speaks to them, these are two undeniable contenders.