The standout watch from Patek Philippe for 2022 is a remarkable feat of engineering,
Patek is well known for its “travel time” complication, something it came up with in the 1950s that typically makes use of two pushers to change the local time in either direction, meaning its watches can jump time zones without being taken off the wrist.
Dual day and night indicators, meanwhile, allow the local time to be easily read in a 12-hour format.
In the 1990s it came up with another complication, its annual calendar, a mechanism that meant its watches were able to differentiate between the months with 30 days and 31 days, so that it only needed adjusting once a year (in February).
For its new reference 5326G-001 it has combined the two.
So now there’s a traveller’s watch that displays the day, date and month and only requires that once-a-year adjustment.
It’s a feat of technical wizardry that required eight patents.
The new watch also dispenses with those side pushers. Everything is controlled via the crown.
That makes it look simpler and nicer.
But then everything about the 5326G-001 looks nice.
The charcoal grey, textured dial is meant to evoke camera cases from the mid-century (Patek mentioned Leica to us). The white gold case is surrounded by a hobnail pattern in guilloche. The Arabic numerals and hands, also white gold, have a beige luminescent coating, adding to the mid-century-modern look.
It could be a watch from deep in Patek’s storied archive. Except it has all that clever tech added on top.
The 5326G-001 is 41m and has a 48-hour power reserve. It is available on a white gold bracelet or a black or brown leather strap.
£59,200; patek.com
