Artle - Toric in Platinum

DETAILS

Collectors’ interest in watches from independent watchmakers and small creative brands is currently increasing significantly. For many of these brands, including Parmigiani Fleurier, the beginnings of their activity are particularly interesting from this point of view. In the initial phase, the founders of such brands usually implement their own preconceived and often unique concepts. Later on, factors such as customer wishes become increasingly important, which, although inevitable, often leads to a significant correction of the original concept or even to its complete abandonment. In the early days of Parmigiani Fleurier, under the leadership of its founder Michel Parmigiani, the brand mainly offered collector’s watches. They were characterized by a special aura, which we prefer to call ‘museum spirit’ and which was cultivated in the collection thanks to the efforts of Mr. Parmigiani. His background as a watch restorer and his refined esthetics brought a ‘museum’ approach to the design of the brand’s watches, which played an important role in the development of the early collection.

REASONS TO BUY

The Toric Automatic Ref. C00760 Platinum would be an excellent opportunity for the collector to acquire an extremely rare classic ‘tuxedo’ wristwatch from Parmigiani Fleurier, a world-famous haute horlogerie brand. Early in its history, the brand established a reputation for museum-class collector’s watches, and this watch was arguably made to cement that status. The refined combination of a baroque style full of detail and a laconic overall concept that makes the watch look like a museum piece is a typical feature of the best early Parmigiani Fleurier watches. This is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful pages in the history of the brand.

ABOUT THIS WATCH

The museum spirit is most clearly expressed in the early Torus collection by Parmigiani Fleurier, which was renamed Toric around the year 2000. In the Torus/Toric models, we find similar design features, such as the refined design of the bezel and caseback. Particularly noteworthy is the high-quality workmanship of the caseback, which often receives little attention – in relation to the Torus/Toric watches, this reflects and confirms the high positioning of the Parmigiani Fleurier collection from the very beginning. The multi-level architecture of the bezel and the edge of the caseback creates a symmetrical case profile when viewed from the side, while from the front the stepped shape of the bezel is emphasized by two rings with fine fluting, a kind of ‘filet sauté’ (or ‘cremaillère’) guilloché contours. The Torus/Toric’s wide bezel, necessary for this design, allowed the brand to follow the trend towards large watches that emerged and gained momentum in the late 1990s, as it allowed a harmonious design with calibers that had previously been developed with the aim of producing smaller watches.

This Toric Automatic represents the best that can be found in the legacy of the early Parmigiani Fleurier, if we do not speak of complications. But the laconic style of this watch, the simplest model in the brand’s early collection, is of great value in itself. This watch has an exquisite and heavy platinum case, which is very appropriate for a classic, high-quality dress wristwatch. The watch dates from around the year 2000, but has lost none of its appeal for the modern connoisseur. This applies to all aspects – the design, the perfect 1/5 proportions and 40 mm size of the case, the finishing of the dial and the high-quality Parmigiani Fleurier caliber 133 with automatic winding, which is a personalized Nouvelle Lémania 8810. The iconic stepped bezel with double ‘filet sauté’ and case back with single ‘filet sauté’, a harmonious ‘tuxedo’ dial with three zones – an outer matte black with white ‘pearl’ minute track, a silver chapter ring with black printed Roman numerals, and a central black zone with a meditative ‘grain d’orge’ guilloche pattern and an applied oval cartouche with logo – all creating an incredible, contradictory but harmonious combination of a baroque style full of details and a laconic overall concept where there is no detail you want to part with.