The Promise Of Escape

Introducing a new Calatrava 24-Hour Display Travel Time combining timeless elegance with an original 24-hour display

- JONATHAN HO

IN THE LATE 19TH AND EARLY 20TH CENTURIES, a large wave of immigrants from Portugal arrived in Brazil, bringing with them a social phenomenon: the arrival of European artistic movements of the time like the Art Nouveau and Romanticism. This ushered with it the rise of a new Brazilian elite that would define the latter half of the century, with the arrival of Art Deco on the one hand and the development of Neo-Colonial styles. The Deco tradition was manifest in many of Brazil's landmarks, such as the Cristo Redentor statue overlooking Rio, the City Hall in Belo Horizonte and multiple buildings and viaducts in São Paulo, and a new age for a famous retailer in Rio de Janeiro, Gondolo & Labouriau, with whom Patek Philippe enjoyed a strong and successful business relationship between 1872 and 1927. Among their many creative endeavours are the Chronometro Gondolo pocket watches featuring 24-hour dials: a temporal reflection of an attitude of a newly internationalised segment of society.