This is an edition of the newsletter Box + Papers, Cam Wolf’s weekly deep dive into the world of watches. Sign up here.
Yesterday, hallowed watchmaker Patek Philippe launched a brand-new line. The Cubitus is the brand’s first collection launch since the 1999 debut of the Twenty~4, which was designed exclusively for the ladies. As far as watch-world news goes, it doesn’t get any bigger than this. The massive Swiss makers move glacially, and Patek could make news if it decided to launch a line of stationery. ( I’d be first in line.)
My view is that launching something new is a nearly impossible task for the established Swiss brands. Whether we look at Audemars Piguet and its Code 11:59 or Rolex and the 1908, these launches are always met with extreme skepticism by a majority of collectors. There’s often pushback even when these brands do something out of the ordinary with their existing models—see the “puzzle dial” Day-Date at Rolex. However, I believe the watch industry would be a much less interesting place if all these brands did was reissue established vintage models, as some seem to wish they would.
The mechanics of the watch world are what makes big-time releases like the Cubitus so exciting. Unlike fashion, where trends are set on runways for the following season and can be tracked through the relatively small aperture of a few months, watches can go decades before ultimately cementing their position in the hierarchy. PP putting out a new watch is like if a sculptor brought a stone out in front of an audience in the early stages of shaping it. The Cubitus will be refined by Patek and shaped by the headwinds of cultural opinion, co-signs, and the market around it. It will be many years before we can fully appreciate the new watch, and the part I’m most excited about is tracking that arc.
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