Blue Note: Parmigiani Fleurier Launches The Tonda PF Microrotor Platinum Stone Blue

Parmigiani Fleurier has been around since 1996, and since it was founded by watchmaker Michel Parmigiani, who like many highly regarded independent watchmakers began his career restoring vintage clocks and watches (his clients included the Patek Philippe Museum as well as the Musée international d’horlogerie (MIH) in La-Chaux-de-Fonds. Michel Parmigiani’s influence on watchmaking in Fleurier, at one time one of the most important centers of watchmaking in Switzerland (the town in 1860 had over 600 watchmakers many of whom were occupied in making elaborately decorated watches for the Chinese market) is hard to overstate; in a story from 2016, by The New York Times’ Kathleen Becket, Michel Parmigiani’s daughter Anne-Laure recalled that people would “stop him on the street and thank him” for his role in bringing watchmaking back to Fleurier.

Since then, the company has been through several incarnations. Originally Parmigiani Fleurier was supported financially by the Sandoz Family Foundation, which still owns the brand (although there have been several reports over the last year that the Foundation was interested in selling PF) and the number of fascinating and often highly complicated watches and clocks that PF has produced is staggering – everything from a Hijiri perpetual calendar, to an oval watch with pantograph hands that lengthen and shorten as they travel around the dial, to the Senfine concept watch featuring the Genequand escapement, which was designed to run for 70 days. The sheer number of different designs and complications became so varied that it became clear to CEO Guido Terrini, who took on the role in 2021, that some streamlining of both the company’s collections and of its designs was in order and that same year, the company launched the Tonda PF collection, which features clean, integrated case and bracelet designs and a mix of simple and complicated watches. There are now three basic collections: Tonda, Tonda PF Sport, and Toric, as well as occasional small series or unique piece timepieces (like the Les Roses Carrées Grand Feu).

Despite Parmigiani Fleurier’s heritage of complexity, some of its most notable watches since 2021 have emphasized simplicity and clarity of design and an excellent example of this direction is the new Tonda PF Microrotor Platinum Stone Blue.

The Tonda PF watches in general are all about careful use of negative space, and the Tonda PF Stone Blue is no exception; the number of design elements is relatively small, so each one has to be very carefully thought out in terms of specific design, position, materials, proportion and color since, with a simple watch, there’s really no place to hide. If Parmigiani Fleurier could be faulted for anything in its past, it’s probably a tendency for its designs to edge a bit into the baroque, but the Tonda PF Stone Blue is a minimalist, modern watch with no extraneous features.

Interestingly enough, the dial while called “stone blue” is not actual stone, which kind of turns the current trend of stone dial watches on its head and which at this point may be more interesting than an actual stone dial. The texture as well as the color give a mineral as well as minimal feel, with the dial set off by a narrow sunken outer minute track crossed by twelve faceted markers, in rhodium plated 18k gold (the hands are rhodium plated 18k gold as well). Overall the watch is 40mm x 7.8mm but it’s likely to have an outsized visual presence in the hand and on the wrist, partly thanks to the large, clean dial, slim hands and markers, and especially the narrow finely knurled bezel.

The cool blue of the dial is matched by the cool, almost icy glow of platinum – a fascinating metal for watch cases; it’s heavy, dense, and lustrous but also extremely durable. Its density means that this is going to be a watch whose clarity of design is matched by a luxurious sense of density; the bracelet as well as the case are platinum, although the subtle design means that the opulence of the watch is going to be at least as much a private and tactile experience as it is a public and visual one.

The movement is the Vaucher manufactured caliber PF703, with platinum microrotor. This is a version of the Vaucher VMF 5400, which has been used by Hermès and Richard Mille as well. The balance is freesprung, with a flat balance spring and the movement overall is extremely flat, at 30.06mm x 3.07mm, which makes for a very flat watch; the case of the Tonda PF Stone Blue is extremely thin, at 40mm x 7.8mm, which is thinner than the 39mm x 8.1mm current Jumbo version of the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak, albeit the Jumbo has a date window and the PF doesn’t (which is for any possible client for this watch, more likely to be a feature than a bug).

It is in keeping with the trend in modern luxury watchmaking, exceedingly expensive at $91,400 but that is for better or worse on par with similar offerings from other brands; to look at AP again, the green dial and platinum 39mm version of the Jumbo at launch was $105,400. Straight comparisons in haute horlogerie are challenging as there are simply not that many time-only integrated bracelet platinum watches out there right now (not that there ever were a lot).

While this isn’t exactly a watch that storms the barricades of conventional watch design I don’t think it aspires to nor do I think it needs to. It is instead a sparely beautiful simple, time-only watch, unencumbered by a seconds hand or date display, in an aristocratic material with a carefully designed and executed dial and dial furniture. A limited edition of 25 pieces, it is also not a watch you are ever apt to see on someone else’s wrist if you own one, and its well executed and original take on horological minimalism has a quiet sense of identity all its own.

The Tonda PF Micro-Rotor Platinum Stone Blue: case, polished and satin finished platinum with knurled bezel, 40mm x 7.8mm with sapphire crystals front and back; water resistance 100 meters. Dial, stone blue, with 18k gold rhodium plated markers and hands. Movement, PF703 extra-flat micro-rotor automatic, Vaucher Manufacture base, 48 hour power reserve, running at 21,600 vph in 29 jewels; 30.6mm x 3.07mm with platinum micro-rotor. Price at launch, $91,400; limited edition of 25 pieces worldwide.

View our collection of pre-owned timepieces from Parmigiani Fleurier.