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Last August, during Geneva Watch Days, I wrote that Parmigiani's new Tonda PF collection was "The Start Of Something Seriously Exciting" – and while I hesitate to say I told you so, I was right on the money this time. Guido Terreni, the architect of the Tonda PF line who joined the Fleurier watchmaker as CEO in January 2021, recently clued us in that Parmigiani has already sold through its entire 2022 production capacity. There's no doubt now – the Tonda PF is a certifiable hit.
It feels like there's a tremendous amount of goodwill and positive energy building up around the Parmigiani brand. It's a vibe that continued up to our arrival in Geneva late last month for Watches & Wonders 2022, where we saw the first expansion of the Tonda PF line since its August 2021 debut. Parmigiani didn't disappoint: We met the first skeleton and the first tourbillon-equipped examples of the Tonda PF, but the highlight of the show was clearly the introduction of the new Tonda PF GMT Rattrapante.
Parmigiani boldly billed this release as featuring a "world's first complication," and it attracted plenty of praise. It's a very clever implementation of a dual time-zone complication placed within the sleek and slim form factor that made the Tonda PF Micro-Rotor such a quick success. The GMT Rattrapante prioritizes subtlety and understatement above all, something that might end up being both a positive and a negative for end users.
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Because from one perspective, you might look at Parmigiani's latest release and decide it is functionally neither a GMT nor a rattrapante. And if you were to be extremely pedantic about horological terminology, I might even agree with you. But I prefer to focus on what the watch is instead of gatekeeping what it isn't, and what the Parmigiani Tonda PF GMT Rattrapante is is one of the most interesting and understated dual-time watches in years.
Unlike the GMT complication you're likely familiar with, Parmigiani's latest take on the travel genre has no date window, no AM/PM indication, and no 24-hour hand. And unlike the rattrapante mechanisms you typically read about on HODINKEE, it's not a chronograph of any sort, either. At first glance, in fact, you might think the watch solely operates through a two-handed display of the passing time, that it's a watch even simpler than last year's Tonda PF Micro-Rotor. The illusion of restraint here is precisely the point. The Tonda PF GMT Rattrapante goes out of its way to hide what it can do.
A pusher on the case that is neatly integrated into a teardrop-shaped lug near eight o'clock offers a hint. Simply press this pusher and the white-gold hour hand will start to jump ahead in one-hour increments. But it leaves something behind – a previously hidden second central hour hand in rose gold has emerged from underneath the white gold hour hand and remains in its original position, marking your home time. The jumping white gold hour hand can now be set to whatever new time-zone you desire (exclusive to one-hour offsets, sorry Newfoundland), while the rose gold central hand keeps an eye on your original/home time.
Once the need for a second time-zone has ceased, a rose-gold pusher that's part of the three o'clock crown will return the white gold hour hand back to its original position, set co-axially on top of the rose-gold hand. All you need to do is press this pusher and watch as the silver-toned hand flies around the dial and the rose gold hand suddenly disappears beneath it.
Parmigiani has a few patents in play on the design and implementation of the Tonda PF GMT Rattrapante, so they weren't able to share a ton of details on exactly how it works, but my understanding is that it involves a 12-spoke star wheel and a heart-shaped cam that manages the reset mechanism, similar to a chronograph. (No, there's no scissor-like clamp like you'd find in a typical split-seconds chronograph.) The new complication adds remarkably little dimension to the case itself, measuring in at 40mm × 10.4mm, in stainless steel, compared to the 40mm × 7.88mm of the flagship Tonda PF Micro-Rotor.
In person, the Tonda PF GMT Rattrapante is a sleekly simplified take on one of the most popular categories of watchmaking. It's neither a GMT or a rattrapante in the traditional sense of the term, and it doesn't feel like it's trying to be either one, despite its name. There are countless alternatives out there that operate with by-the-book GMT complications, featuring date windows, AM/PM markers, and 24-hour hands. I don't think we necessarily need another identical option. What Parmigiani has instead brought to the table is a genuinely novel and fresh take on the display that recognizes itself as a luxury good instead of masquerading as a tool watch.
I have no doubt that Parmigiani could create a fantastic traditional GMT watch if they so desired, and the company already makes one of the absolute best rattrapante chronograph movements out there, so it's necessary to understand that the fundamental choices made by the newest Tonda PF were intentional, not enforced by limitation. Terreni previously told me a bit about the brainstorming session where the "GMT Rattrapante" concept was born, and he emphasized the beauty, the romance, and the simplicity of this new complication. The original GMT watches were built as functional tools by Glycine, Rolex, and Longines to be used by men at work, in the skies, and in the field. Parmigiani has created a new type of GMT that is an outright dismissal of those utilitarian origins. Why pretend?
After all, Terreni told me last October that Parmigiani is now "looking for a client who already has everything. Our customer is not someone buying their first watch."
At $28,700 in stainless steel, it's safe to assume the Tonda PF GMT Rattrapante will be very few people's entry-level timepiece. I'd go so far as to say that Parmigiani's Tonda PF GMT Rattrapante is not only acknowledging the luxury remit of watch collecting in the 21st century but fully embracing the first-class lounges and private jet terminals it will more than likely call home.
The Tonda PF GMT Rattrapante is a beautiful, deceptively simple watch that brings new dimension to the horological arms race that is the stainless steel sport watch genre.
For full specs, pricing, and availability, check out our initial Introducing post.
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