Watch Dandy

SIHH was a mighty birthday celebration for the now-60-year-old Piaget Altiplano. Looking at the new releases from Piaget this year, almost all are are from the Altiplano collection, save a few limited edition PoloS models (more on those later). We have already shown you the two Altiplanos explicitly dedicated to the 60th anniversary, but these new references with automatic movements and date function further demonstrate that Piaget is doubling down on its history. Let’s see why this is both great news and a bold move.

You’d be hard-pressed to think of two more influential men in the world of watches than Richemont’s Franco Cologni and LVMH’s Jean-Claude Biver. They are both bastions of the old guard – working their way up from the bottom in the 1970s to become true visionaries and decision-makers in this space today. Cologni began his career selling licensed Cartier-branded cigarette lighters and eventually became not only CEO of Cartier for some time, but also later chairman of Vacheron Constantin and Panerai, both of which he was instrumental in bringing into the Richemont group. A board member for some time, Cologni is responsible for a lot of what we see at Richemont. And Biver, well, you know his story. And so when one ribs the other, and publicly no less, you have to take note.

The Toric Collection, you might say, stands out amongst the other Parmigiani collections by not standing out; the cases are round and the lug shapes in general are more conventional than those in any of Parmigiani’s other families of watches. This is not to say that they’re simple though. As a matter of fact, of the 10 Toric models in the current PF catalog, five are minute repeaters, while four are variations on this new model, which is the simplest Toric by a considerable margin. The Toric Chronomètre is a COSC-certified chronometer wristwatch with date.