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Parmigiani Fleurier Launches Tonda PF Sport 

Parmigiani Fleurier launches a pair of sporty models within its Tonda PF collection, adding the Tonda PF Sport Chronograph and Tonda PF Sport Automatic, two models that effectively replace the watchmaker’s Tonda GT collection.

The new Parmigiani Fleurier Tonda PF Sport Chronograph, available in a 42mm steel or rose gold case.

Both watches extend the watchmaker’s Tonda PF collection, first introduced two years ago as a slate of knurled platinum-bezel dress models with clean dials and revamped bracelets.

The new Parmigiani Fleurier Tonda PF Sport Automatic is available in a 41mm steel or rose gold case.

The new ‘tailored’ approach to the design drew has drawn strong collector acclaim. The watchmaker has responded with a series of high-profile rattrapante designs and complicated models within the expanding Tonda PF collection.

Parmigiani Fleurier offers the new models in both steel and rose gold. As sporty watches within a fairly dressy collection, both the Tonda PF Sport Chronograph and Tonda PF Sport Automatic display design touches that confirm their sportier appeal, including a bolder bezel and broader guilloché dial pattern.

The knurled bezel on each Tonda PF Sport watch features 160 cuts rather than the finer 225-incision bezel found on the dressier Tonda PF collection.

The new dial features a hand guilloché ‘triangular nail’ pattern known as clou triangulaire, a sportier look when compared to the guilloché grain d’orge of the existing Tonda PF collection.

In addition, Parmigiani Fleurier coats the applied hour markers here with black SuperLuminova while also supplying each watch with a rubber-treated textured and stitched strap. Both watches are water-resistant to 100 meters.

For the 42mm by 12.9mm ‘panda’-style chronograph, Parmigiani Fleurier has removed the large date found on the firm’s previous GT chronographs in order to leave space for the PF logo.

This mimics the dial on the current, dressier, Tonda PF chronographs. The (smaller) date is now found between the 4 o’clock and 5 o’clock position. In addition, the new design features shorter indexes and a somewhat smaller flange.

Similarly, on the 41mm by 9.8mm Tonda PF Sport Automatic the watchmaker places a small date aperture at the 6 o’clock position to allow for a clean dial marked only by a logo at the 12 o’clock position.

The PF Tonda Sport Chronograph displays its Caliber PF070 movement via a clear sapphire back.

Inside the Tonda PF Sport Chronograph Parmigiani Fleurier fits its stunning Caliber PF070, a superb high-frequency (5Hz – 36,000 vph) manufacture movement with an integrated column wheel chronograph and a vertical clutch. The COSC-certified chronometer offers a power reserve of sixty-five hours.

A view of the caliber PF770 from the back of the Tonda PF Sport Automatic.

Inside the Tonda PF Sport Automatic you’ll find a Caliber PF770 with a serial-mounted double barrel and a power reserve of sixty hours. To extend the sporty design, the watchmaker also created a new, skeletonized oscillating weight for both watches. The watchmaker says the rotor now looks somewhat like the steering wheel of a Ferrari 250 GTO. 

Prices: $50,200 (chronograph in rose gold), $29,000 (chronograph in steel), $38,200 (automatic in rose gold) and $21,300 (automatic in steel). 

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Watches and Wonders 2023: The Parmigiani Fleurier Tonda PF Minute Rattrapante  

One year after debuting the world premiere Tonda PF GMT Rattrapante, Parmigiani Fleurier this year follows up with another premiere jumping hand watch, the Tonda PF Minute Rattrapante.

The new Parmigiani Fleurier Tonda PF Minute Rattrapante.

The new watch echoes last year’s GMT by performing a classic timing function with a new, simpler operation. Where that earlier model allowed for a hand-based display of GMT time, the new watch allows the user to check elapsed minutes on-demand via a second minute hand hidden directly under the primary minute hand.

Instead of turning a calibrated bezel (as on a dive watch), the user simply presses a pusher to move the second, gold hour hand to the desired time.

With the Tonda PF Minute Rattrapante, it’s the movement’s control of the second minute hand that performs the elapsed time display, not the user’s bezel-read calculation. The elapsed time is indicated when the primary minute hand reaches – and covers – the gold minute hand.

This display can be used for any fine calibration of the minutes over a specific period of time, or for any occasion or event requiring measurement of the minutes count, such as for cooking times or game times.

To use the function, the wearer can move the rose gold hand in either five-minute increments (via the pusher at 8’o’clock) or one-minute increments (via the pusher positioned at 10 o’clock). Once the two hands meet and superimpose, the period of time to be measured will have elapsed.

At any time, the wearer can return the gold hand to its position hidden underneath the rhodium-plated primary minute hand by pressing the crown-integrated pusher, in a similar way to the split-seconds function. 

As on last year’s Tonda PF GMT Rattrapante, this new hand-based time counting function is only visible when activated.

The movement that makes these functions possible, new caliber PF 052, is powered by an elegant rose-gold micro-rotor and is fully visible from the back of the 40mm steel case.  

The functionality here is of course paired with the watchmaker’s high-end workmanship and finishing. These include a hand-cut Grain d’Orge guilloché dial in a sand grey color and 18-karat gold hands and markers. As on all Tonda PF models, the knurled bezel is platinum.

The new Tonda PF Minute Rattrapante is a welcome, ingenious addition to Parmigiani Fleurier’s new series of hand-based complication displays.

Price: $30,600. 

Also new in 2023

In addition to the headliner Tonda PF Minute Rattrapante, Parmigiani Fleurier debuts a platinum-cased Tonda PF Flying Tourbillon with a stunning Milano blue dial ($163,700), a premiere all-platinum Tonda PF Microrotor model with time and date only ($92,800), and a trio of perpetual models displaying time using the Islamic, Chinese and Gregorian calendars.

The new Tonda PF Flying Tourbillon.
The new all-platinum Tonda PF Microrotor.

The watchmaker also adds a rose-gold edition of last year’s premiere PF GMT Rattrapante, complete with a rich Grain d’Orge guilloché dial in Milano blue,($65,500) plus a rose-gold edition of its always impressive Tonda PF Split-Seconds Chronograph ($169,100).

A new rose-gold edition of last year’s premiere Tonda PF GMT Rattrapante.
The Parmigiani Fleurier Tonda PF Split-Seconds Chronograph, now in rose gold.

We’ll have more about the debuts in future posts. 

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The Watches

Parmigiani Fleurier Unveils a Red Rose Repeater  

With the new Rosa Mystica, Parmigiani Fleurier presents the latest addition to its stunning Roses Carrées collection of five unique minute repeaters decorated with Grand Feu enamel and intricate hand engraving.

The new Parmigiani Fleurier Rosa Mystica.

On the new watch you’ll find a red Grand Feu enamel dial, an engraved rose on the back and a bezel, the lugs and case band hand-engraved with the flowery La Rose Carrée motif. Parmigiani Fleurier underscores the red theme with a natural garnet cabochon on the 42mm 18-karat white gold case.

Like the blue-enamel La Rosa Celeste, which Parmigiani Fleurier launched in 2022, the Rosa Mystic is cased in a hinged hunter’s caseback that reveals a manually wound minute repeater caliber with cathedral gongs.

The chime has been optimized by a suspended movement, with the heel of the gongs physically connected to the case. In addition, watchmakers have redesigned the case to create resonance pockets and to lighten the white gold mass.

Parmigiani Fleurier has also devised an unusual ringing sequence for this movement that automatically skips dead time. For example, at 3:19, the three chimes for the hour are immediately followed by a double chime for the quarter-hour and again, without silence, by up to four chimes for the minute.

For the series, Parmigiani Fleurier has skeletonized the PF355 caliber (which recalls the PF361 caliber from 2016) with intricate curves and counter-curves, 114 inward and outward angles, and hand-applied beveling, polishing and surface treatments.

Price: Upon request. 

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The Watches

Roses Bloom at Parmigiani Fleurier

Parmigiani Fleurier has expanded on the work done for last year’s impressive unique-piece La Rose Carrée pocket watch to create the unique-piece La Rosa Celeste, the first minute-repeater wristwatch within a new five-piece Les Roses Carrées collection.

The Parmigiani Fleurier Rosa Celeste.

You may recall that a year ago the luxury watchmaker celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary with the release of the La Rose Carrée pocket watch, a unique minute repeater based on a Louis-Elysée Piguet caliber that had been restored in Parmigiani Fleurier’s workshops.

The new Rosa Celeste offers a 42mm white gold case that is hand-engraved with the same motif found on the 2021 pocket watch, and also includes a hunter’s caseback. The  back and the chiseled dial of the new watch are finished with richly detailed blue grand feu enamel, a painstaking artisanal process that requires multiple high-temperature firings.

The skeletonization of the PF355 caliber is directly inspired by that of the PF361 caliber, known as Chronor.

For the repeater, Parmigiani Fleurier chose to create cathedral gongs. Here, the chime has been optimized by a suspended movement and with the heel of the gongs physically connected to the case. In addition, watchmakers have redesigned the case to create resonance pockets and to lighten the white gold mass.

The outer face of the caseback bears a large square fractal Rose, also hand-engraved and covered with multiple layers of blue enamel.

Unusually, Parmigiani Fleurier watchmakers have also devised a ringing sequence automatically skips dead time. For example, at 3:19, the three chimes for the hour are immediately followed by a double chime for the quarter-hour and again, without silence, by up to four chimes for the minute.

The beautifully skeletonized PF355 caliber also features an unusually long 72-hour power reserve. Parmigiani Fleurier mounts the new La Rosa Celeste on a blue, hand-sewn alligator leather strap.

Price: CHF 600,000. 

Specifications: Parmigiani Fleurier La Rosa Celeste

Movement: PF355 manual wind with minute repeater on cathedral gongs, continuous chiming sequence. Power reserve: 72 hours, 21,600 Vph (3 Hz). Finishings: Côtes de Genève, openworked bridges, hand-beveling and circular graining.

Case: 42mm by 13.39mm white gold, polished and hand-engraved with “La Rose Carrée” pattern, crown topped with cabochon-cut natural sapphire, sapphire crystal and back. The Hunter caseback is white gold, hand-engraved with “La Rose Carée” pattern, Grand feu enamel, interior engraving, “Rosa Celeste”, “PF” seal and Michel Parmigiani’s signature. Caseback engraving serial number, “Parmigiani Fleurier,” Swiss Made, and ‘Pièce unique’. Water resistance: 10 meters.

Dial: Hand-engraved with chiseled pattern, blue “Grand feu” enamel, hand-applied indices, 18-karat gold and rhodium-plated appliques, hours and minutes hands in 18-karat gold, rhodium-plated, skeletonized and delta-shaped.

Bracelet: Blue alligator leather strap, double-sided, hand-stitched with 18-karat white gold pin buckle with hand-engraved “La Rose Carée” pattern.

Price: CHF 600,000. 

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The Watches

Parmigiani Fleurier Adds Sparkle to Tonda

Parmigiani Fleurier adds diamonds to a time-only Tonda Automatic to create the glitteriest model within the watchmaker’s recently updated Tonda collection.

While not specifically an extension of the new, widely acclaimed Tonda PF collection, the new offerings do enhance the broader Tonda collection by debuting its first fully gem-set models.

The Parmigiani Fleurier Tonda Automatic Rose Gold.

Focusing on the watchmaker’s trademark barleycorn-pattern dial, each watch dial on this new model is fully set with diamonds that follow the distinctive lines of the pattern, which really sets this jeweled series apart from other glittering updates we’ve seen recently.

At 36mm by 3.9mm and cased in either a rose gold or white gold, the new watches are meant to be a “refined tribute to feminine elegance,” according to Parmigiani Fleurier. The watchmaker explains that its artisans have set more than a thousand high-quality diamonds of varying sizes on the dial, case and bezel. And unusually, each dial displays gems specifically set to generate light-reflecting sparkle within the signature barleycorn pattern, known as a Grain d’Orge motif.

The Parmigiani Fleurier Tonda Automatic White Gold.

The setting process involved highlighting the Grain d’Orge pattern with a diamond “snow” setting that uses diamonds of seven different diameters, set in a very limited space on the finely patterned gold dial, according to Parmigiani Fleurier.

On each dial you’ll see light reflected and refracted from 979 brilliant-cut diamonds. The bezel and the lugs are also set with an additional seventy brilliant-cut diamonds. The artisans didn’t forget the crown, which is adorned with a cabochon in either blue sapphire on the white gold model, or white opal on the rose gold model.

Inside, Parmigiani Fleurier fits its PF310 caliber that boasts a 50-hour power reserve and an oscillating weight in 22-karat rose gold and engraved with the same Tonda signature Grain d’Orge guilloché pattern. Hermès makes alligator leather strap for the watches, with a blue strap on the Tonda Automatic White Gold and a brown/grey strap for the Tonda Automatic Rose Gold. Price: CHF 59,000.

 

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