Weekly Idol

Patek Philippe introduces not just a calendar complication but a new old school retro-aesthetic born from handwritten font style

- Jonathan Ho

In the Patek Philippe Ref. 5212A-001 Calatrava Weekly Calendar for 2019, the Geneva manufacture introduces an all-new in-house calibre with a new complication: The weekly calendar. The Calatrava Weekly Calendar is so named for the semi-integrated mechanism that adds a week of the year indication to traditional indications such as date and day of the week.

For more than a century, Patek Philippe has been known for its calendar watches, thanks to its development of a myriad of features, including the introduction of the annual calendar complication. Developed as recently as 1996, Patek Philippe introduced the concept of the Annual Calendar in Ref. 5035. This watch packed all the sexiness and complexity (in terms of number of components required, 316 to the perpetual calendar’s 275) of a perpetual calendar but at a more modest price point. To wit, an Annual Calendar is to the Perpetual Calendar what an Aquanaut is to the Nautilus.