Gentlemen,
As you have often read in these pages, watches (focal point of elegance for many of you) and luxury timepieces are not regularly featured in PG. Indeed, not mastering its very fundamentals, we leave it to others to cover this highly specific domain in many blogs and websites, hosted by genuine aficionados (to say the least) whose wisdom and knowledge on the subject is often nothing short of dazzling.
To each his own as they say, and our specialty rather revolves around patinas and peaked lapels, milanese buttonholes and lovely tweeds.
Notwithstanding the importance of expertise and legitimacy when exploring a subject which one does not fully master, we are not immune to, once in a blue moon, falling (sometimes hard) for a specific watch we find particularly elegant and which we can very much envision as quite the dapper finishing touch to a classic and refined ensemble.
Enter Parmigiani Fleurier’s Tonda 1950, catching my eye during an intercity train journey, wrapped around the wrist of the man sitting next to me.
It is worth noticing that the gent wearing this sublime timepiece was just barely correctly dressed in a low-end rtw suit (with interfacing throughout) and a questionable shirt-necktie pairing.
The seemingly unremarkable setting (except for his watch and my suit), proves one of the essential differences between “watch-addicts” and us, lovers of fine garments.
On my neighbour, the watch was at the centre of what Alan Flusser calls your “personal frame”.
Whereas I, meticulous adept of the foundations of elegance, had successfully (on that specific day, as elegance is a path, not a destination) achieved, I hope, a delicately balanced and discrete ensemble, spiced up with an almost imperceptible clash between my purple socks and the weathered wood patina of my shoes…
Regardless, I was stunned, for the second time in my life (the first was at the sight of the steel Villaret model of the Maison Blancpain) to be so inspired by the lines, simplicity and distinctive character of this beautiful timepiece, that I could actually consider acquiring this beautiful watch one day.
Supremely elegant.
Cheers, HUGO
