Patek Philippe's Calatrava Pilot Travel Time Charts A New Course
For years, established watch brands have been mining their archives for inspiration, but rarely do historically derived designs cause a stir like Patek Philippe's Ref. 5524 Calatrava Pilot Travel Time ($47,600). As fashion editors gushed, Patek purists bristled at the old-guard brand's unexpected departure from its conventional aesthetic codes. Ultimately, retailers weighed in with enough orders to keep the novelty in production for the next three years, according to Larry Pettinelli, president of Patek Philippe U.S.A.
"Thierry [Stern] loves to take chances, he loves to push the envelope," explains Pettinelli, who points out that Stern—Patek's 45-year-old president and the fourth-generation Stern to helm the company—also took heat for the sporty Aquanaut, which debuted in 1997. "Why should people pigeonhole Patek? As long as it has some DNA of Patek Philippe, why not?"
The swaggering 42 mm, 18k white-gold pilot's watch traces its lineage to a pair of hour-angle, or siderometer, wristwatches that the company produced in the 1930s. In those early days, aviators used timekeeping instruments for navigation, and the hour-angle function, when used in conjunction with a sextant and radio signal, enabled them to make simpler and faster calculations for more precise positioning.
Designers of the contemporary watch took cues from the strong, streamlined cases of the historical pieces, which currently reside in Patek Philippe's Geneva museum. However, they veered in a different direction with the retro dial, which is coated with navy blue lacquer and appointed with bold, white-gold Arabic numerals that are treated with SuperLuminova to glow in the dark, as are the local hour and minute hands.
Given that the hour-angle function has been obsolete for decades, the watch is outfitted with Patek's dual-time mechanism, which is far more useful for Patek clients who crisscross time zones in first class instead of a cockpit. The elegant mechanism moves the local hour hand forward or backward in one-hour increments simply by pressing the pushers on the left side of the case. The skeletonized second hour hand keeps track of time at home and simply slides under the main hour hand when it's not required. Simple apertures serve as day/night indicators at 9 o'clock for local time and at 3 o'clock for home time. The sub-dial at 6 o'clock resembles a small seconds, but actually displays the date.
Despite its precious gold case and nearly $50,000 price tag, the Calatrava Pilot Travel Time is aimed at a younger, hipper audience. "It's something fresh," says Pettinelli, who acknowledges that the design may turn off an older, staunch Patek devotee, while serving another purpose. "We've been dying to put something in front of younger people to get them involved with Patek Philippe. Maybe we'll make it in steel in a year or two, and then, all of a sudden, it's a whole different ball game."
