HYPNOTIC ENGRAVING
The 2019 SIHH will soon be opening its doors, and the watchmakers from Fleurier will be presenting a new version of a watch made by Michel Parmigiani 21 years ago.
In 2017, at the Salon International de la Haute Horlogerie (SIHH), Parmigiani launched the Toric Chronometer, a contemporary reinterpretation of the first watch designed by its founder, Michel Parmigiani, in 1997, some 20 years earlier. Now, just a few weeks before the 2019 SIHH, the brand from Fleurier is back with a second version of this emblematic timepiece, the Toric Chronometer Slate.
Your eyes are first attracted and even hypnotised by the engraved guilloché pattern on the slate-grey dial. The face of the Toric Chronometer Slate is covered with an engraved line called the “grain of rice”, with a concentric pattern made by hand and recalling the scales on a pine cone. Above this surface inspired by the beauty of nature, there are two delicately open-worked, luminous, spear-shaped hands made of red gold to show the hours and minutes on the applied Arabic numerals. A central hand with a crescent-moon counterweight takes care of the seconds. The date appears at 6 o’clock in a large fan-shaped counter. The dial is encircled by a fluted bezel with knurling made by hand using a tool that carves grooves directly into the metal.
The various functions are driven by the calibre PF441, an automatic movement with chronometer certification by the COSC. With the help of a double barrel, it supplies the watch with up to 55 hours of power reserve.
This new Parmigiani watch has a 41mm-wide red gold case. It is worn with a Havana-brown alligator-leather strap, equipped with a red-gold tang buckle, and is made in the Hermès workshops.
Price: 24,000 CHF
By Sharmila Bertin