BY HARLAN CHAPMAN-GREEN
Salmon colours have been in for a while now, but you don’t tend to find them on watches that we regular folks might one day be able to afford. Sadly, salmon seems to be the colour for the watches of the wealthy. Patek Philippe is, of course, on hand to deliver two new timepieces for us to admire.
The first is the 5320G perpetual calendar. It’s presented in a 40mm x 11.13mm dressy case crafted from white gold and on a shiny brown alligator leather strap. It seems to take from the history books, although not any specific chapter, the lugs and the dial print seem fairly historical, while the dial layout itself seems modern (it’s not really) with windows presenting information such as the day, date and leap year. There’s a moonphase as well, as you’d expect.
Inside this watch is the self-winding 324 SQ, fitted with the Gyromax balance wheel and Spiromax balance spring. This anti-magnetic hairspring is also highly accurate and resistant to thermal shock, and it’s also finished beautifully. It’s not a limited edition, but it does cost €84,700.
The other watch is the Chronograph 5172G. It was initially seen with a blue dial back in 2019 but has returned with salmon colouration. Of course, it’s about as classical as you can get for a Swiss-made chronograph. It’s got two registers with no date to clutter everything up and is made of white gold. It’s quite conservatively sized at 41mm x 11.45mm.
It’s elegantly finished, and Patek Philippe has spared no detail in executing the calibre CH 29-535 PS movement. Being manually-wound means there’s no interruption from a rotor. There’s a column-wheel for better control, but Patek Philippe uses a lateral clutch, despite the advantages of a vertical clutch, because the lateral clutch looks much better in person. It’s priced at CHF68,000. Visit Patek Philippe here.
