Shine SQUAD

Patek Philippe unleashes the power of grand complications and Haute Joaillarie refinement on its elegant sports wristwatches for ladies.

- TAN SIOK HOON

Patek Philippe does not often launch a slew of watches for women but fortuitous times have arrived as the Manufacture just unveiled not just new Nautilus jewellery models, but an Aquanaut Luce minute repeater to cap its latest precious ladies’ novelties. Since it released the Nautilus in 1976 and the Aquanaut in 1997, the Genevan watchmaker has captured the elegant sports segment with its Nautilus and Aquanaut trove that has morphed into cult watches.

The Aquanaut, inspired by the spirit and design sensibility of the Nautilus, has been winning fans with its youthful and dynamic dial design and coordinated strap in a composite material. Over the years, Patek Philippe has been enriching and equipping the Aquanaut with complications. Most recently, it endowed the Aquanaut with the exclusive Travel Time dual time-zone mechanism, replete with a date display synchronised with local time (Ref. 5164 in 2011) and then with a self-winding flyback chronograph (Ref. 5968 in 2018). In 2004, the ladies’ Aquanaut was released as the Aquanaut Luce (“light’ in Italian) and its trajectory of elevated models echoes the men’s Aquanaut with the addition of these complications: a quartz movement featuring the Travel Time dual time-zone function (Ref. 5269 in 2021), a self-winding flyback chronograph with gem-setting (Ref. 7968 in 2022) and a patented Annual Calendar (Ref. 5261 in spring 2023).