World champion: Patek Philippe

Patek Philippe’s new World Time Chronograph is the perfect travel companion, but still shines on home ground

Watches & Jewellery 8 Mar 2023

The Ref. 5935A-001 World Time Chronograph is another classic and looks certain to create waiting lists

The Ref. 5935A-001 World Time Chronograph is another classic and looks certain to create waiting lists

Watch complications – those added functions which go beyond merely telling the hours and minutes – are often combined to create fascinating groupings. A typical duo would be a second time zone plus date, adding practicality for the traveller while retaining a level of high legibility and user-friendly operation. For its cult masterpiece, the Ref. 5935 World Time Chronograph, Patek Philippe paired two main complications to serve inveterate globetrotters, and the combination has proven irresistible. Now offered in stainless steel, the model has an appeal that is certain to create waiting lists.

Why such new-found excitement? Of late, stainless steel– to the surprise and delight of manufacturers, vendors and, indeed, collectors – has acquired added cachet, even over dearer precious metals. For one thing, it is more discreet than any of the coloured golds, while most non-jewellers would be hard-pressed to tell it from platinum or white gold. For another, when it comes to surviving the rigours of daily wear, it is a superior metal over the much softer golds for a watch case. For many watch lovers then, the new, sportier Ref. 5935A-001 World Time Chronograph in stainless steel will certainly become quotidian attire, even between bouts of foreign travel.

Patek Philippe, of course, has form when it comes to sport/dress watches, the Nautilus and Aquanaut being two of the most desirable examples of the genre. As for chronographs and world timers, it has excelled with both, the former exemplified by the immortal Ref.1463, which combined stop-watch functionality with elegant looks. And the latter? The Genevoise manufacture was among the first to employ the genius design of Louis Cottier, who devised a dial and mechanism able to show all the world’s time zones at a glance, with easy zone changing as required.

Inside the World Time Chronograph’s water-resistant 41mm case is the self-winding CH 28-520HU calibre, visible through the sapphire crystal caseback. This in-house creation is hallmarked with the Patek Philippe Seal attesting to its quality, and it provides a power reserve of 50-55 hours. There’s one more feature to add: Ref. 5935A-001 isn’t a mere chronograph, but the more complex flyback type. This function enables rapid timing restarts by instantaneously resetting the central chronograph hand back to zero, which immediately recommences counting.

Minimising the amount of dial “real estate” required by the chronograph, to best serve the world time element, the Ref. 5935A-001 features only one subdial, a compact30-minute counter at the 6 o’clock position. The remainder of the space on the exquisite, rose-gilt opaline dial, with its distinctive, textured “carbon” motif, deals with primary timekeeping and world time zones.

For the real-time hours and minutes, the dial is appointed with charcoal grey hour markers with luminescent coating and an inner chapter ring for the minutes. Surrounding this ring are key cities, one per time zone, while inside the minutes ring is another to show if it’s day or night in the 24 time zones.

Since Cottier developed the original world timer movement in 1931, Patek Philippe has refined it continually, especially for usability. The Ref. 5935A-001’s World Time function, while simultaneously indicating the time in all 24 time zones, achieves the correction of all its displays through an exclusive patented mechanism. It is able to perform this action through a single pusher, located at 10 o’clock. Opposite, at 2 o’clock and 4 o’clock are the pushers for the chronograph.

Priced at £51,430, the Patek Philippe Ref. 5935A-001 World Time Chronograph is supplied with two calfskin straps, one in grained taupe and the other in hand-stitched beige with a nubuck finish, secured with a fold-over clasp. Both reinforce the sportiness of the watch while providing ideal, complementary hues to highlight the luscious rose-coloured dial. In other words, it’s yet another ideal, covetable gift to look after for the next generation.

patek.com