iW Fall 2023 Fall 2023 | Page 47

A 24-HOUR CALATRAVA

THE CALATRAVA REFERENCE 5224R-001 , the headliner among the seventeen new watches unveiled by Patek Philippe during Watches and Wonders 2023 , scores high for legibility , ease of use and originality .
Arriving amid a strong set of debuts , including a highly jeweled Grandmaster Chime and the first annual calendar within the Aquanaut Luce collection , this newest adaptation of Patek Philippe ’ s Travel Time dual-time display offers an original display of local time and home time via two center hands turning on a 24-hour circle .
Patek Philippe has used similar 24-hour displays , but most have been seen on watches from the distant past . In the early twentieth century Patek Philippe made a series of Chronometro Gondolo watches for the Brazilian retailer Gondolo & Labouriau .
But for the new watch , Patek Philippe flipped the original design . Instead of placing the noontime indication at the more traditional 6 o ’ clock position , Patek Philippe opts to update ( and , to many , simplify ) the display by placing noon at the top of the dial where , it seems , more wearers look when checking the time .
In another nod to simplicity and aesthetics , Patek Philippe has also replaced the traditional in-case correction pushers for local time with a new patented correction system that allows the user to pull out the crown . When pulled out to the intermediate position , the local time can be adjusted backwards and forwards in
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